About disabled people... non official thread :)

flintstone

At 63 I don't hear as well, my sight has gone down hill........and my fingers don't move like they used too. I use a Razor mouse with my right hand, and the left side of an xbox 360 controller with my left hand (this really only requires my left thumb and one finger).

I'm VR8 and have played solo up to this point........something is working alright I guess...... even if my play style is somewhat strange.

Night_Watch

Just popped in to share some sites that are apt for this thread and may be of interest to all gamers regardless of physical ability or disability;

http://www.specialeffect.org.uk/

http://www.ablegamers.com/

http://www.game-accessibility.com/index.php?pagefile=motoric

http://www.oneswitch.org.uk/2/ARTICLES/physical-barriers.htm

There are many more such sites! Your search engine is your friend.

Kindest regards.

PVT_Parts

Squishy wrote: »

Hi hi,

since a few others seems to have issues similar to my own, I thought it'd be nice if we all pitched in, and described our own issues, and what workaround we have... after all, not all others might have thought about it .

I personally, have a little issue, where if things get too fast, or I get stressed, my fingers get well... confused.

This is particularly bad if playing a summoner type of character, as often, I'd end up unsummoning something, rather than summon what I want.

The obvious solution, usually, is to spread the keys (1,2 for main attacks, 5 7 9 for summons).

In ESO however, this does not work if we swap weapons, as we end up having hard to reach keys. The counter I found to this, as a mage, is to equip a fire destro staff, with the CC /AOE on the keys where the summons are. When in a "panic" moment, If I manage to switch weapon, I then switch to full dps mode, and when the fingers are just mashing the keyboard on their own, being a DPS AOE/damage, that can become quite useful and efficient.

The alternative being to have crystal ball slotted, and cast it. The cast time is usually enough to calm things down a bit.

For lockpicks, I'm usually ok. I screwed up master levels a few times, but always manage them somehow. I guess the timer is not aggressive enough to trigger panic mode .

your 1,2,5,7,9 is possible. Just switch the hot keys. You can only have 5 skills, but those skills can be set for whatever hotkey you want. they aren't stuck being 1-5.

michaelpatrickjonesnub18_ESO

Buy a modern gaming mouse!

It's a console game, so the keystrokes will be too hard for many people.

That Razer Naga is sweet.

Squishy

PVT_Parts wrote: »

your 1,2,5,7,9 is possible. Just switch the hot keys. You can only have 5 skills, but those skills can be set for whatever hotkey you want. they aren't stuck being 1-5.

Indeed, but when swapping to a dps weapon, then it becomes very unpractical . But thank you regardless.

VampiricOmen

Spoiler'd my thoughts so not to derail the thread.

I have ACTM, or Acute Complete Transverse Myelitis. In essence, Transverse Myelitis refers to one section of the spinal cord becoming inflamed but with ACTM, my entire spinal cord became inflamed, and I very nearly ended up with brain damage (the inflammation ended a few millimetres away from my brain stem) and was given a grim chance of survival. During recovery after the onset of ACTM I went from a complete quadriplegic, to a paraplegic then to walking, if a bit strangely, without aids. To be told that you cannot do something that you once did on an almost daily basis is mind-crushing to a then-fourteen year old (I played competition soccer).

I still face repercussions of this condition daily. There is no "getting over it" when your own nervous system is against you, it's a daily battle just to not fall into a toxic depressive state. There's a reasonable chance at recovery for some, but you'll never be 100% again and for me that window closed six years ago (with TM, the recovery window is generally considered to be two years from onset and if the patient does not improve within that time, they likely never will) - to which I recovered far more than any of the prognosis's I received predicted.

But there is a light at the end of the tunnel, at least for me. I know that I can overcome unbelievable odds and that when I achieve something a normal person can achieve, that I tried that much harder to get where I am today, that I wanted it that much more. Comparing now, to what I was like some eight years ago, I only played games on occasion, usually when at a friend's or cousin's house. Now gaming is one of the few things I can enjoy without going to a doctor and getting approval. So the mindset of "just don't play it" isn't a fair one at all. It's like seeing a cookie jar on the bench and being told that it's full of delicious, freshly baked cookies, but no, you cannot have any of them. The toddler in me wants to throw a righteous, wailing, tear filled fit, while the adult in me wants to beat the system, to prove that I should be allowed to have it. Thankfully the adult usually steps in before the toddler grabs the reigns.

I digress from the main topic of this thread and would now like to share how I play this game.

I don't have hand-to-eye coordination issues, at least I don't think I do, but my condition still calls for adjustments when gaming. When playing, I use a Razer Naga Hex to use keys 1-6 whilst keeping my character moving with W, S, A, D. While this hasn't prevented deaths altogether, it has prevented a decent number of them, as I am not pausing to the hit the number keys above the W,S,A,D. I primarily type with two fingers, any more than that and my typing/button pressing becomes a jumbled mess. My keyboard is nothing special, a Microsoft Comfort Curve thingymamajig. Nicer keyboards cost a little bit too much to be able to replace them as often as I need to. With other games (namely cooperative shooters) I use a Razer Synapse macro to turn semi-automatic weapons into full automatic, although I manually calibrate it, so that there are natural pauses between firing.

I still haven't gotten used to the dodge mechanism (I always seem to get hit regardless of whether or not my character somersaults out of the way!), but I use the block/interrupt mechanism like no tomorrow. This game's lockpicking is actually far easier than Skyrim's system for me, even with the timer, and that is something I appreciate as picking chests for loot with traits is something I do often. Timed gameplay events usually induce a lot of stress, and less often, a lot of frustration.

I avoid most opportunities to group with people I don't know, so to not annoy and frustrate them when I drop dead from seemingly silly encounters. In hindsight, a dual wield Nightblade was perhaps, not the wisest of character class choices. I am missing out on all private group dungeon content and will likely miss out on Craglorn type content too (in WoW, DCUO and GW2 I just couldn't keep up with the pace required), but my character's level is still sub-35 so I have a long way to go yet. I might give the private group dungeons a go once I outlevel the content just to get those skillpoints, but my one experience of them so far wasn't a good one at all.

I have addons out the wazoo that makes crafting easier, such as the multi-craft addon which make crafting more enjoyable and less taxing on the wrist (pressing R 120 times isn't something I call fun). All in all, I haven't found a game that I am unable to play, but most of those games require me to change keybinds or to download mods/addons that make it easier on me. Competitive PvP gameplay is something I only participate in on consoles, as just about everyone has the same hardware - controllers, even then I'm not the best at the multiplayer aspects of said games.

Gwarok

Being a Craig Hospital (Denver, Colorado, USA) Alumni '91 myself; I'm just going to throw THIS in here because it is just so awesome for those that are incomplete quadriplegics to use on a TON of games that may have digit (finger) functionality but difficulties maneuvering a gaming mouse.

[Video]http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=0f2fl17ps9w#t=3[/Video]

The Peregrine Gaming Glove, removing the boundaries between you & the virtual world.

(EDIT): Here's also another good resource page folks might want to take a peek at and iGrip Ergonomic Keyboard by AlphaGrip

Rocksteady

Squishy wrote: »

Hi hi,

since a few others seems to have issues similar to my own, I thought it'd be nice if we all pitched in, and described our own issues, and what workaround we have... after all, not all others might have thought about it .

I personally, have a little issue, where if things get too fast, or I get stressed, my fingers get well... confused.

This is particularly bad if playing a summoner type of character, as often, I'd end up unsummoning something, rather than summon what I want.

The obvious solution, usually, is to spread the keys (1,2 for main attacks, 5 7 9 for summons).

In ESO however, this does not work if we swap weapons, as we end up having hard to reach keys. The counter I found to this, as a mage, is to equip a fire destro staff, with the CC /AOE on the keys where the summons are. When in a "panic" moment, If I manage to switch weapon, I then switch to full dps mode, and when the fingers are just mashing the keyboard on their own, being a DPS AOE/damage, that can become quite useful and efficient.

The alternative being to have crystal ball slotted, and cast it. The cast time is usually enough to calm things down a bit.

For lockpicks, I'm usually ok. I screwed up master levels a few times, but always manage them somehow. I guess the timer is not aggressive enough to trigger panic mode .

I suggest you give Everquest a try(not saying not to play this though). I grew up on that same slow speed combat that relied more on minute to minute timing rather than split second button mashing and there really is a world of difference. Back in my EQ days I ran into a multitude of disabled people, lots of army vets with missing hands(yes you could play EQ with one hand if you knew it well) simply because it was almost like it was made with that in mind. Again, I don't want you to think you can't play this game, just that if you haven't tried it, you really should at least take a peek at it(its pretty well free to play these days).

PVT_Parts

Squishy wrote: »

PVT_Parts wrote: »

your 1,2,5,7,9 is possible. Just switch the hot keys. You can only have 5 skills, but those skills can be set for whatever hotkey you want. they aren't stuck being 1-5.

Indeed, but when swapping to a dps weapon, then it becomes very unpractical . But thank you regardless.

hmm, well then I can only say either get a gaming mouse. or do something like zxc are your summoning skills 3-5 and qe your DPS, then when you switch back to your DPS build, you could keep the 1-5 as the secondary setup for that. you would have to switch around a few other commands, but you would get used to it quickly. or as I heard it done before, use your number pad. Use 8564 as your movement and 7 9 as your DPS and 123 as your summons. Not sure exactly what you want here since you state that you want to use 12579 and then when I tell you how to do that, you say it is very unpractical...Wasn't my idea. Also, use the middle mouse button for a skill, that will solve at least one of your issues, maybe you can even set it so that scrolling up does 1 summon, scrolling down does another and pressing down does the 3rd, not sure if this is possible with ESO though.

EDIT: THe scroll wheel up, down, and pushed all work as a bindable hotkey. This means that you can put your most used abilities on there to use if you want to avoid using the keyboard. That means that the average mouse can have at least 3 of the 5 abilities set on it.

Night_Watch

@Squishy, I cannot mail you directly as that facility is currently offline. I just wanted to point out I have edited my previous posts to be more in line with this thread. In one of the posts it may have seemed that I was being rude to you via sarcasm. I have removed the remark that was made in frustration and not really meant to offend. Sorry!

Back on topic;

I hope some of the adaptations I listed and some of the websites I linked have been of some good use.

I forgot to mention that I have a set of wrist weights that I often use to steady my hands when typing, gaming or otherwise using my computer or when I need to write (pen and paper).

A suggestion a friend made a short while ago regarding control devices;

Though it may not be cheap to do so, disabled gamers may find a visit to a local business that deals in custom made devices fruitful. In my hometown we have a small business where the shop floor has various bits of electronic kit and software to buy but in the back of the shop there is a large work space where custom electronic devices are made for various uses. I have not used the shop for custom devices but I'm sure the owner would gladly make such a device if I asked. (I used to make custom devices myself as a hobbyist but cannot do 'fiddly' work anymore!)

Squishy

@daywatch the angry comments were not aimed at me I think, as a moderator seemed to have removed those, which I completely missed, so no actual clue what the poster actually said, but several replies were made to that post, and that ended up diverging a lot from the intended topic . I just meant if possible to edit the replies to the moderated comment/poster.

On a sidenote, last night, I went into pvp for a bit. Turns out my panic button mashing costed the lives of a few blue and yellow FEAR the TWITCHY SQUISHY. .

Regarding special hardware, I've been considering that, it would usually work well, but with the abilities switch in ESO, a setup for one, might become unpractical for another, hence why for now, I leave it on the basic 1 to 5 WASD setup (with R remapped to 6, and only using targeted ultimate to prevent accidental firing). As dps however, it can become quite deadly, since if you pick your skills well, they'll be useful regardless of which one, even if it seems disorganized (like casting crystal ball, then fire reach, negating the knockback of fire reach ), but it's still, better than ending up petless, and virtually naked ^-^

Sakiri

My vision is pretty shot and I have ulnar nerve issues in my right arm making using a mouse a bit difficult.

I turned the interrupt/dodge alert things to always on because I cant see the lines and I think Ill take advice to bind dodge.

My vision being crap I sometimes have issues reacting fast enough to combat.

epoling

While I am not disabled in any official way, I have never had the hand-eye coordination to do much physical type stuff. I tend to suck at any game that requires a lot of fast movement, like dodges and interrupts. However, I appreciate the folks in this thread and the great advice they have been sharing may just make my game a lot easier. *smile* Thanks to all of you!!