The current system in place is UN-acceptable for amputees. And your suggestion to me was to buy additional hardware, when as a customer I shouldn’t be expected to pay more than anyone else to use your platform simply because I am handicapped. A player with two hands 10 fingers uses a key board and mouse. I should be able to use the same keyboard and mouse and be able to use all my character controls just as a non-amputee would use them!
GM’s this means you as well need to provide viable solutions for someone such as myself that is an amputee and only has one hand to use while playing the game.
Macro’s are viable option but they are extremely limited when it comes to a multitude of macro’s and impossible for a one handed individual to use more than five or six at a time. And using the alt or shift key to access more macro commands isn’t even an option, because I don’t have fingers on my left side to use the sift or alt keys.
PVP is the worst, it is impossible to play on an even playing field with someone that has two good hands. I can’t compete evenly with only having access to half of my option commands for my character.
I am told by GM’s in a ticket that they can’t help me with this issue, and they referred me to the forums pages to seek out answers from fellow players. Yes that is correct the GM’s either don’t care or can’t be bothered, or they are completely incompetent, or there is no system in place for a handicap player.
Either way GM’s that monitor the forums feel free to provide a solution if you can!
I get that you’re angry that you can’t play fully with one hand, but it is not Blizzard’s responsibility to either nerf the game for everyone else to solely one-handed play or customize it so that you can play one-handed.
What they’ve done is allow for addons and optional hardware to be integrated into the game in a truly open way allowing all sorts of adaptive options.
If you’re willing to get past your anger and accept that you may need to obtain input devices that you CAN use (foot pedals, for instance) and work with me one-on-one, I’m sure we can get you up to speed and competitive.
My (now ex-) GF was a stroke victim with one working hand and one working foot and she was quite competitive - not quite rated PVP competitive, but heck on wheels in unrated Arena and unrated BGs - and the only reason she wasn’t “rated” competitive is that she just didn’t like waiting around for premade groups - she wanted to PLAY.
You can reach out to me in-game by battle-tagging me at Kaldara#11970. I’ll give you as much time as you need and work with you to find a solution to this, I promise.
Edited to add: I probably HAVE any hardware you need. I’ve made it something of a mission to work on adaptive play aids for disabled players. I’ve got lots of spare bits lying around.
Edited to add: Preliminary design for a left-hand amputee.
I don’t know how much of a stump you have, but I’m assuming best case you have half of your forearm.
If that’s true, you can do this pretty easily:
- 3-pedal footswitch under your right foot. This would be for (left to right) strafe left, move forward, strafe right. iKKEGOL sells two different 3-pedal versions - the older version is actually a little better for sustained use (from an ergonomic perspective) - around $40 on Amazon.
- 2-pedal footswitch under your left foot. This would be for (left to right) turn left,turn right. iKKEGOL sells at least three different versions of these. I think they’re all under $35 on Amazon.
- 3-pedal footswitch under your left ARM. This would be for (left to right) ALT, CTRL, SHIFT for making your macros more versatile. I know it’s a foot switch, but it’ll work just fine for a stump of an arm. Same model as the first listing here - around $40 on Amazon.
All in that’s around $115 - about the price of a decent gaming keypad (actually less than what I paid for mine) so well within the budget of a “normal” gamer setting up a “normal” gaming system.
I’d recommend the Logitech G600 gaming mouse. Several sites list it as the best MMO mouse in the world and it’s got a raft of buttons to play with. 12 on the side, mouse wheel knock left/right, two bonus buttons on top of the middle of the mouse, and a third mouse button off to the right, all of which can be set to send custom keys rather than defaults. I used one for many years and I have two in the house right now. It’s generally less than $40 but I’d be willing to ship one of mine to you for the cost of the shipping. Likewise I have a 2-pedal foot switch I’d let you have as well on the same terms.
All in that would give you full use of every movement key except backwards (and I’ve been advised by more than one PVP player to unbind the “S” key so I get out of the habit of backing up anyway). With that and click-to-move set in your interface selections you should be fine on movement.
With 17 available mouse buttons for abilities and all 3 modifiers available to you, you should be able to play as well as any fully-abled person can.
If your arm stump is too short to reach the desktop, there are alternatives - pressure sensors that can be set up - but they’re a touch more pricey. Options there are to sacrifice some of the G600’s buttons to be modifier keys or to obtain those pressure sensors and set them to be ALT/CTRL/SHIFT.
thank you for taking the time to reply. i like the idea of pressure censors as a solution. i still feel that its blizzards obligation though to make the game equally accessible to handicap individuals. i mean would a brick and mortar business required a person in a wheel chair to put in a wheel chair ramp? no that’s the businesses responsibility.
I get your frustration, but their responsibility is to make reasonable accommodations. In this case, that means making the game compatible with various input devices. (As well as features like click-to-move.) By allowing addons, they also allow for user-solutions to some problems. MMOs are designed around lots of abilities and so changing that fundamentally changes the game.
To use your analogy, Blizzard has built the ramp they just expect the customer to supply the wheelchair.
Edit: I should add that there is always room to improve accessibility. If you have any specific suggestions/problems, you can use the in game suggestions tool. It also might not be terrible to post them here, as there may be some non-obvious UI solutions already in existence people around here can help out with.