09 May, 2007, Zeno wrote in the 1st comment:
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Has anyone had any blind players on their MUD? I've never really encountered any blind players when I used to play MUDs, but now that I've been running a few for the past years, I've had a few at the least. It's a good thing I didn't code in some overland system to make up for lack of areas, blind players can't navigate a map system at all.
09 May, 2007, kiasyn wrote in the 2nd comment:
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On Dark Legacy we've had a couple, unfortunately we do have an overland map system so they don't stay long =(
09 May, 2007, Guest wrote in the 3rd comment:
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Honetly can't see how a blind person walking into 500 rooms of "Lots of trees here in this filler zone" would be any more useful to them than an overland map :P
09 May, 2007, Zeno wrote in the 4th comment:
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I don't know exactly either, but I would think it has to do with the fact the screen reader is reading off "Pound sign, Asterisk, Percent sign, Ampersand, Asterisk, Pound sign" etc. :P Seeing as how most overland maps are somewhat large (at least 5x5) each time you move/look, it'd be unbearable.
09 May, 2007, Conner wrote in the 5th comment:
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Zeno said:
Has anyone had any blind players on their MUD? I've never really encountered any blind players when I used to play MUDs, but now that I've been running a few for the past years, I've had a few at the least. It's a good thing I didn't code in some overland system to make up for lack of areas, blind players can't navigate a map system at all.


I knew a guy who was blind that hosted muds and played on a few some years back, but I don't think that I'm actually aware whether or not any of my current players are blind, I don't generally ask them.

Samson said:
Honetly can't see how a blind person walking into 500 rooms of "Lots of trees here in this filler zone" would be any more useful to them than an overland map :P


My best guess here would be that each of those filler rooms ends with "Exits: North, South, …" where as, like Zeno said, the overland map would be a series of (non-colored) symbols spewn at them. Beyond that, no real idea.
09 May, 2007, Zeno wrote in the 6th comment:
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I don't ask mine either, but most bring it up due to the fact that some of my MUD isn't exactly "blind-friendly".

As for overland, I think some/most have the "Exits" line but even with that, the player would still get spammed with all that map data junk over the speech program.
09 May, 2007, kiasyn wrote in the 7th comment:
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probably wouldnt take too much to code a quick function that generated a very rough description of the room. they would be at a disadvantage but still able to play

Forest
To the north of you is an ocean sector, to your east is a forest sector, to your south is a forest sector, to your quest is a forest sector.
Exits: north, east, south, west


dunno =P
09 May, 2007, Guest wrote in the 8th comment:
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I suppose it wouldn't be impossible to add some kind of flag that a blind person could use to suppress the display of the map in game since they can't use it anyway. If they're using special screen reader clients then perhaps using telnet negotiation to ask for the terminal name would be useful here.
09 May, 2007, Conner wrote in the 9th comment:
Votes: 0
Zeno said:
I don't ask mine either, but most bring it up due to the fact that some of my MUD isn't exactly "blind-friendly".


Oddly enough, I don't think I've heard that particular complaint before, but then I really don't have much in the way of "graphics" on my mud beyond a few of the more colorful help entries and the compass which you have to config +compass to activate, so maybe my mud is currently blind friendly. *shrug*

Samson said:
I suppose it wouldn't be impossible to add some kind of flag that a blind person could use to suppress the display of the map in game since they can't use it anyway. If they're using special screen reader clients then perhaps using telnet negotiation to ask for the terminal name would be useful here.


Not sure how much of this really applies to me since I"m not using overland, but it sounds like a charitable enough measure that really ought to not be that much extra effort to make work, but then having not really played with overland much, I could easily be wrong about that.
09 May, 2007, Zeno wrote in the 10th comment:
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Quote
Oddly enough, I don't think I've heard that particular complaint before, but then I really don't have much in the way of "graphics" on my mud beyond a few of the more colorful help entries and the compass which you have to config +compass to activate, so maybe my mud is currently blind friendly. *shrug*

Well, most of my MUD is friendly to blind players. But we have a map system (it's not required to move), so that is one thing blind players have a disadvantage compared to other players. I also have this snippet installed:
<worn on legs>      <++++++++++>  (Glowing) A Dragon Scale Leggings

I can't say blind players can really make good use of that either.
09 May, 2007, Scandum wrote in the 11th comment:
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Blind people can't compete anyway, unless they write a bot to do most of the playing for them.

Most blind people I've encountered are whiners who generally successfully manage to talk a coder into adding 'features' to aid them. After these so called features have been added they sit around socializing while not actually playing because, as I stated before, they can't really compete anyway.

Eventually they leave in a silly attempt to find another mud, where they hope they might be able to compete after talking yet another coder into feeling sorry for them.

Not surprisingly I've yet to see a client script written by a blind person that makes a specific mud reader friendly, which only strengthens my believe that most of them are a bunch of spoiled useless mouths.

Bottom line, whenever a blind person comes along and bugs me for 'features' I slay them on sight and ask them if they 'saw' that one coming.
09 May, 2007, KaVir wrote in the 12th comment:
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Of my 8845 player files, 202 are using the "Screen Reader" config option, including several of the top players (one of whom currently has 692 pkills). Coordinate-based movement is pretty convenient for blind players, though, as they can simply target their desired destination and start moving, only receiving new descriptions when the terrain changes.
09 May, 2007, Scandum wrote in the 13th comment:
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Scandum said:
Blind people can't compete anyway, unless they write a bot to do most of the playing for them.
09 May, 2007, KaVir wrote in the 14th comment:
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They can compete just fine without botting.
09 May, 2007, Zeno wrote in the 15th comment:
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I agree, they can compete just fine. I haven't coded anything in for blind players (yet) and I know of 2 who are playing the MUD, are doing just fine.
09 May, 2007, Scandum wrote in the 16th comment:
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KaVir said:
They can compete just fine without botting.

I guess we've just found the key to determine whether a mud is challenging or not and how to keep blind players from leaving. :wink:
09 May, 2007, KaVir wrote in the 17th comment:
Votes: 0
Scandum said:
KaVir said:
They can compete just fine without botting.

I guess we've just found the key to determine whether a mud is challenging or not and how to keep blind players from leaving. :wink:


Sighted newbies often have trouble keeping track of all the text flying past the screen, but with experience they learn to skim it and pull out the information they need at a glance. Skilled blind mudders are able to do the same, setting their screen readers to extemely high speeds, gagging sequences of non-displayable characters (such as lines of dashes used for formatting), using hotkeys to skip past text they recognise, and using custom sound packs to replace lengthy combat messages with specialised fighting sounds. It's only when it comes to certain specific things that blind players aren't really able to compete - for example, ASCII maps, formatted tables, colour-coded data, prompts that can't be switched off, vital combat data that can only be viewed at the end of a huge score sheet, and so on. Spend a couple of hours adding alternative support for these features, and they can play just as well as the sighted players.

You might have learned this yourself if you didn't always "slay them on sight and ask them if they 'saw' that one coming."
09 May, 2007, KaVir wrote in the 18th comment:
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KaVir said:
It's only when it comes to certain specific things that blind players aren't really able to compete - for example, ASCII maps, formatted tables, colour-coded data, prompts that can't be switched off, vital combat data that can only be viewed at the end of a huge score sheet,


…and signing up at MudBytes. After talking to one of my blind players about this issue he was eager to share his views, only to discover that the embedded graphics prevent him from registering. D'oh.
09 May, 2007, Conner wrote in the 19th comment:
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Zeno said:
I also have this snippet installed:
<worn on legs>      <++++++++++>  (Glowing) A Dragon Scale Leggings

I can't say blind players can really make good use of that either.


Hmm, hadn't really thought about that, but I've got that one in too. :sad:
09 May, 2007, Conner wrote in the 20th comment:
Votes: 0
KaVir said:
KaVir said:
It's only when it comes to certain specific things that blind players aren't really able to compete - for example, ASCII maps, formatted tables, colour-coded data, prompts that can't be switched off, vital combat data that can only be viewed at the end of a huge score sheet,


…and signing up at MudBytes. After talking to one of my blind players about this issue he was eager to share his views, only to discover that the embedded graphics prevent him from registering. D'oh.


:lol: Not to laugh at the problem, but there is a certain aspect of ironic humor there.. I had been suggesting over at the QuickSilver Portal site that we need to add support for admins to pre-register members, now we've got another reason for it too.
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