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WoW Blind

To date, millions of individuals both young and old play the massive multi-player online game World of Warcraft. Most of those who play the game have decently good vision which enables them to play well.

However among the crowd of millions, I am a unique player that stands out from the rest. My name on WoW, is known as Meg alla, and I am visually impaired. I was diagnosed with a degenerative eye disorder known as, Retinis Pigmentosa, a condition which causes degeneration of the photoreceptor cells in the retina. Photoreceptor cells capture and process light, helping us to see. As these cells degenerate and die, you experience progressive vision loss.

This is an example of what I see when I play. www.darkroseradio.com/RP.jpg

My doctor informed me that by the end of this year, I will have achieved full vision loss and to really take in and enjoy all that I am able to see. I discussed this issue with my friend Jon and he told me about World of Warcraft. I felt that since I had never really been an intense gamer (except for recently playing Pirates of the Caribbean and mastering it) I should give it a shot at this point as by December I won’t have vision anymore. So I downloaded the trial, and after playing for 4 days straight I was hooked.

I’ve been playing for 3 months so far, and with the assistance of my friends Amanda, Jon, Kate & Scotty, along with the additional help of the wonderful members in the guild Mystery & Intrigue, I’ve reached level 45 and steadily climbing.

So what does the world of warcraft look like to someone who is visually impaired? I suppose the best way to describe it, is for you to actually try it for your self! So try this - take two drinking straws, hold them up really close to your eyes and look through them. Try looking at your computer screen through them, and that will show you what I see when I play the game. Small isn’t it?

This of course, brings to mind the question of “how do you play like this?” well, it’s difficult. But with the help of fellow guild members, group raid targets, text-to-speech technology, lots of verbal directions, and quite a bit of patience, it works out quite well. The only time people who don’t know me have questioned me about my vision was when I repeatedly run into walls or fall off the edges of trails in small areas.

I greatly prefer to travel in groups rather then work solo because when I am fighting along and get hit, all I know is from the sound effects is that I’m getting smacked, I can’t really tell where I’m getting hit from. It will usually tell me when I cast a spell that I’m facing the wrong way, which is obvious to me at some point when I hear the enemy hasn’t died yet. So I end up clicking around until I find the right spot to hit him and by that time, I’m usually dead. When I’m traveling with a group of people, they’re usually on ventrillo with me and can tell me “Magalla, you were hit from behind by a Rouge. You need to turn 3 steps to the left to hit them.” Or, they will just kill it if the enemy has hit me too many times and I can’t move fast enough.

The only other potentially serious problem I run into, is monitoring my health bar. Because my sight is so limited, I need someone to watch my health gauge for me to make sure when it gets down half way, that I heal.

I will admit that this is a very frustrating way to play a game that costs $30.00 every 2 months. For that amount of money, you would think that Blizzard would make more adaptations for those who are less fortunate to have decent vision. They do as much as they can with their budget (which I’m sure isn’t as large as most think it is), but personally, I feel they could do more.

If you happen to see me playing in the game, and you wish to help me out, the most important tips I can give you would be the following:

• Voice Chat. It comes in very useful to me to hear directions verbally rather then having my text-to-speech say what you type to me, which can sometimes be difficult to do if your busy controlling your character while I’m on follow with you.

• Directional Words. Sayings like “Over here” or “Over there” don’t work with me, because I cannot see enough to know where “here” or “there” is. This is a common mistake. Please remember to use regular directional words (Left, Right, Forwards, Backwards, Up, and Down.)

• Raid Targets: These come in very useful if you add me to your party group. They are small enough to fit perfectly in my line of vision, but not so tiny, that I can’t see them at all. They also stick out from the background, so it’s easier for me to identify enemies, if they’re in mobs or identify who I’m following.

• Loot time: If I’m on follow with you, unless something is attacking me, please wait 8 seconds from the moment I kneel down, for me to loot a corpse before moving forwards. If you move forward while I’m still looting, it will cancel, and I won’t get the item I need.

• Enemies: I cannot tell what type of character is currently attacking me. All I know from the sound effects, is that I am being attacked. It is helpful, (when possible) if you let me know “hey, your being attacked by a Rogue, Crab, Murlock, etc.”

• Healer: If I’m being the healer in your party, please shout out that you need to be healed, if your health bar is half way down, so that I know to heal you. During my training with Jon, I was taught to heal all nearby party members, every 10 seconds. If you suspect, you will get drastically low on health in an upcoming battle, ask me to cast Re-Juvination on you, a few seconds before you enter combat. This spell is good for up to 20 seconds during battle and will keep feeding you health every 2 to 5 seconds.

Regardless of Blizzard’s shortcomings with adaptive technology for blind users, I’ve enjoyed my time playing thus far. The quests are challenging, the story line for some of them is very exciting, the battles are heart-racing, there is always something to explore, and we all share in one common goal - to get to level 70 in one piece.

This is the World of Warcraft that I play, and until I loose full vision, I wouldn’t give it up for anything short of 100 gold.

Posted by magalla on 2008-07-13 01:10:08 | Rating: