Malcanis
High4Life
SMASH Alliance
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Posted - 2007.11.20 11:38:00 -
[1]
Edited by: Malcanis on 20/11/2007 11:39:20
 Originally by: spambunker
A friend of mine and I were looking for a new game in January, 2007, and decided to give eve a try. I was enjoying it enough to keep it up, but he had major issues with it: he is color deficient.
In short, the vast majority of the game is inaccessible to him. He has had to play a very conservative (read, boring) game and avoid the pvp world entirely. We have recently been doing missions together to try to find something to do while we train up for non-combat carreers.
Last week, we were in a level 4 mission. Nothing new there - we've done somewhere around 50 together. I'll spare you the details, but in short, when we hit something new - warp scramblers - he was completely at a loss. Being color deficient means that he cannot distinguish the enemy with the warp scrambler from all the guys who are just shooting at him.
He lost a 200M isk ship.
In order for him to be playing at all, he'd traded me cash in another game for eve isk. His tolerance for eve and especially CCP after about a year of his complaints falling upon deaf ears was more than enough to get him to drop the game, but I applied the thumbscrews and we kept at it despite his ire.
I loaned him another 200M, and this time he dropped in the best warp core stabilizers he could get his hands on and still have an operative ship.
Despite looking at screen captures for an hour and going through a book of photo filter gels until we found one that would make the sharpest contrast between misc game effects and the warp scram effect, that ship dropped as well.
It didn't dawn on me at all until just a few minutes ago that I've never seen him mad. Not in the slightest. It's a moment of shaken faith when a rare person like that goes almost violently ballistic. It's more difficult for a couple reasons:
1) I totally understand his frustration. I, too, have color deficiencies. Not as bad as his, but I recall how impossible it was NOT to take it personally when Homeland FINALLY came out and I FINALLY had it in hand.... and 10 minutes later was posting it on ebay because I couldn't even finish the tutorials.
2) After four years in operation, CCP has had more than enough time to address these issues. After all, more than 10% of gamers are color deficient - why wouldn't they want to address it? The answer is because artists are rather hubristic in this regard. If it isn't pretty to them, they don't want it in their game. I've been working with game artists for a decade. This is an observation for long personal experience.
3) Incidents like this grind into you the fact that what could very easily be a non-issue is in fact an impairing disability ONLY BECAUSE PEOPLE LIKE CCP DON'T TAKE IT SERIOUSLY.
Think about it. If Departments of Transportation hang street lighting that is exactly the same color as a red light (to a red-green anomolous dichromatic color deficient like my friend and I) then driving at night suddenly becomes a game of spot the stop light. If you miss one, you die. There are entire areas of the city where I went to college where I can not drive at night.
Nothing in my experience has ever shown me a situation where color deficiency had to be a handicap. It is entirely in the hands of those who design color-dependent systems. Architects are required by law to memorize reams of handicapped-access laws, but an art department can't be bothered to run their stuff by the one or two guys in the office who could tell them they're in need of some minor adjustments?
I have been that voice in every games company for which I have worked, and it's amazing how much resistance is given to altering something that 'looks great' for 'just a small fraction of the potential buyers.' It's insensitive. It's socially irresponsible. What do you say to the guy in the wheelchair who wants to get on the bus?
http://eve-survival.org/
Edit: I can see which ships are scramming me either.
CONCORD provide consequences, not safety; only you can do that. |