I have a friend who used to play during TBC and Wrath who became completely blind just about 3 months shy of 10 years ago. Though there are a few “normal” games—as opposed to games designed specifically for the blind—he’s been able to play (Diablo III on consoles being decently accessible when in local co-op, some fighting games, some recent EA sports games that have text-to-speech, etc), except for a rare few (MK11, Madden '23), an entirely blind person still needs a guide to help them in parts.
However, thanks to the efforts of Duugu/Waah and others that created an add-on that allows an audio-menu-driven experience similar to a screen reader with an addition of over 55,000 audio samples, echolocation and path markers for navigation, and lots of other things to allow the visually impaired to play WoW Classic. Sure, combining that with a sighted guide is still an easier, better experience than playing alone; however, you can play alone for the majority of solo quests, especially with a ranged pet class. Since his sight loss, I had not seen him as enthusiastic for something as he was to be able to play WoW Classic by himself. I, his brother, a friend, and he have had fun playing together, but he’s been so excited to talk about what he’s able to accomplish himself. It’s just too bad that Blizzard has recently altered some of the API in classic specifically to block some of the things the add-on was doing with follow—to supposedly combat boosting—that has made certain things a lot more annoying for blind players, though not a massive hindrance…the problem though is that they made a statement on here that alluded to them directly contacting and getting feedback from the add-on author, but then edited the post to remove that and didn’t follow through and just silently made the change anyways (why do we have to have so many patches with undocumented changes…sigh).
Since there are (usually) real people (minus the bots) behind the avatars, behind the characters, with real problems and issues that very negatively affect their quality of life , when I see other players—not you, Miriel—being so dismissive or worse towards people’s accessibility issues, I get very annoyed and also very sad.
How can anyone think it’s okay to trivialize anyone else’s afflictions and downplay the idea that they might want a tweak or option to make the a game somewhat less frustrating when it can already be frustrating (and genuinely physically painful) to play. Why belittle someone for wanting a little accessibility in game? We are not talking about real life where physical changes to something may need to be made and would not be optional (and would be governed by the ADA in the states): this is a video game, and making optional changes to a system would hopefully benefit someone with accessibility issues while, hopefully, not lessening the system for others.
And, to tell the truth, for myself, the developers don’t even have to make a dragon flight (or other) change for accessibility-sake: the only thing I’ve ever really wanted from this company with regards to accessibility is to be transparent when they go with something that is excessively in-accessible. All they have to do is allow a dev or cm or something to come post in their own “Accessibility Updates” thread and say
“Hey, we know some of the player base is having accessibility issues with regard to Dragon Riding. The dev team read the community’s concerns, discussed the issues, and even got the opinion of staff with disabilities. However, we have decided that making accessibility changes would be too detrimental to dragon riding (or insert other system here) for the general player base. We are sorry to those it affects.”
Just acknowledging that the design teams even considered making accessibility enhancements for something that does have accessibility issues is so, so much better than being silent and ignoring those with disabilities. Every once in a while they’ll pull through with some good accessibility changes, but still…if they just say that they considered the accessibility problems that are brought up time and time again (and reported in feedback in-game in live and beta), then at least we wouldn’t think that they make some of the accessibility changes just to check it off some kind of vainglorious list to get brownie points with the broader set of players reading only blue posts.
Personally, I have nerve damage from an accident that has resulted in pain, limited movement and flexion, and some not very not fun dyspraxia with my left hand with especially poor control with the pinky, ring, and, to a lesser extent, middle fingers where a theoretical button press could instead be 2 or 3 presses or no press at all—or unreasonably delayed—just “because” that’s how those fingers have worked for many years now. And, yes, from what I’ve played in the beta, dragonriding does kind of suck for me. But, I’ve been too busy using what gaming time I’ve had time to play Classic with the friend I mentioned to test more than about 2 levels in. Plus, I’ve only tried with a keyboard, and I think, for my specific hand problems, I could probably manage with a controller because I don’t have problems with my right hand nor much of an issue with my left thumb or index fingers. I haven’t tried doing that though yet, since I just try to power through when playing normally. So, I have to try that here soon (let’s be honest everyone: the biggest accessibility problem with WoW is that controller support, though they did add it, is pretty lackluster without using an add-on…and that’s just looks so bad for a company in 2022 ).
So…yes, there’s an accessibility issue for me with dragon riding, but because my issues are only with part of a hand, I can likely get around it by button remapping. However, others with disabilities that affect the entirety of their hand(s) or their vision etc may not have that luxury. So, let those with accessibility issues with regard to dragon riding discuss their frustration with not being able to participate in a main feature of the expansion, but, also, if you disagree that concessions should be made, absolutely voice your opinion as well.
But, can we be empathetic human beings and try to agree or disagree with each other’s statements without making disparaging remarks about disabilities themselves or belittling the effect said ailments have our someone’s ability to play, since there’s so much toxicity in and surrounding the game already.