Blind and Visually Impaired Community
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Sneak peek into my latest project: Vimp - A screen-reading add-on for World of Warcraft (self.Blind)
submitted by Fridux
At one point in my life, playing World of Warcraft was one of my main hobbies. I ended up quitting the game in 2010, when the third expansion came out, because I was fed up with the community over the fact that pretty much everyone who played the game was learning strategies from outside sources instead of figuring things out by themselves, a problem which was causing me trouble finding raiding guilds even though I was generally considered a decent tank.
After going blind in 2014, and finding myself with more time in my hands than I could handle, I started craving this game again. I desperately wanted to play it but never actually tried because I couldn't figure out a way to have an acceptable degree of independence particularly with its user interface. Over the years I kept reading about people like $1 who wound up even beating people in arenas without any sight, but there was one thing missing in my life that those blind players have: real life friends or relatives willing to assist them with everything that's not accessible in this game. My niece plays it sometimes but has an extremely busy life and doesn't commit enough so I cannot count on her most of the time.
Fast forward to three weeks ago and my niece said she wanted to return to the game, and that's when I learned that coincidentally Blizzard had just implemented a text-to-speech API in the add-on sandbox, so I went out on a quest to find out whether it was both possible and feasible to implement a screen-reading add-on, as the text-to-speech API is only being used by Blizzard to read chat at the moment. To my surprise it ended up not only being possible but actually much easier than I thought, so I'm making this post to give you a sneak peek into Vimp: my take on an implementation of a screen-reading add-on for World of Warcraft.
To demonstrate my add-on in action, I've uploaded a video to $1, and also made the code available on $1. However I don't recommend trying it just yet since it's in a very early stage of development and many things are still broken. Regardless, this project demonstrates that it is indeed possible for Blizzard to make this game a lot more accessible to the blind community, so hopefully they will eventually render my add-on obsolete by providing first-party in-game screen-reader support, which is a necessity because there are many things that third-party add-ons are not allowed to do in the game.
After going blind in 2014, and finding myself with more time in my hands than I could handle, I started craving this game again. I desperately wanted to play it but never actually tried because I couldn't figure out a way to have an acceptable degree of independence particularly with its user interface. Over the years I kept reading about people like $1 who wound up even beating people in arenas without any sight, but there was one thing missing in my life that those blind players have: real life friends or relatives willing to assist them with everything that's not accessible in this game. My niece plays it sometimes but has an extremely busy life and doesn't commit enough so I cannot count on her most of the time.
Fast forward to three weeks ago and my niece said she wanted to return to the game, and that's when I learned that coincidentally Blizzard had just implemented a text-to-speech API in the add-on sandbox, so I went out on a quest to find out whether it was both possible and feasible to implement a screen-reading add-on, as the text-to-speech API is only being used by Blizzard to read chat at the moment. To my surprise it ended up not only being possible but actually much easier than I thought, so I'm making this post to give you a sneak peek into Vimp: my take on an implementation of a screen-reading add-on for World of Warcraft.
To demonstrate my add-on in action, I've uploaded a video to $1, and also made the code available on $1. However I don't recommend trying it just yet since it's in a very early stage of development and many things are still broken. Regardless, this project demonstrates that it is indeed possible for Blizzard to make this game a lot more accessible to the blind community, so hopefully they will eventually render my add-on obsolete by providing first-party in-game screen-reader support, which is a necessity because there are many things that third-party add-ons are not allowed to do in the game.
Crimso 2 points 1y ago
Between this and Diablo two, I am very hopeful for the future of blizzard accessibility! Keep up the great work, and hopefully blizzard will follow in your footsteps
Laser_Lens_4 2 points 1y ago
Considering the circumstances Blizzard currently finds themselves in, I don't think making their game accessible is very high priority for them. Keep up the good work. This is really cool and it'll let more people play and have fun.
zersiax 2 points 1y ago
How feasible would you say playing this game would be for someone who is blind in all senses of the word? I am fully blind and while a screenreading addon would certainly help for things, there'd still be things like pathfinding and combat that I can imagine could benefit from some sight, or at least some kind of mouse interaction.
This is completely off the cuff; I have never played WOW before and have only seen equivalents, like Guild Wars, played in the past, so these are questions that have no research behind them at all. I'm genuinely just curious to hear your thoughts on this one.
This is completely off the cuff; I have never played WOW before and have only seen equivalents, like Guild Wars, played in the past, so these are questions that have no research behind them at all. I'm genuinely just curious to hear your thoughts on this one.
Fridux [OP] 2 points 1y ago
It's not feasible to play completely by yourself, but the game allows you to follow other players around the world automatically, and some people take advantage of this to raid and even do PvP using a sighted friend or guild mate as a guide. Without screen--reading you can't even do basic tasks like quests, manage your bags and gear, or use the auction house. That's where my add-on comes in.
If you've never played the game I don't recommend trying though since there's a huge learning curve associated with it, but for those who have played in the past and crave it like me, being able to use the game's user interface helps tremendously.
If you've never played the game I don't recommend trying though since there's a huge learning curve associated with it, but for those who have played in the past and crave it like me, being able to use the game's user interface helps tremendously.
jage9 2 points 1y ago
I diagree with your last point. Plenty of blind people have started to learn Hearthstone after having no accessibility until 2 weeks ago. I'm sure the same could happen here. Thanks for the effort, and look forward to following.
SightlessKombat 1 points 1y ago
I will definitely keep my eyes on this, pun intended. :)
Mreiser 1 points 7m ago
Will definitely give this a look, I've never played wow before but always wanted to. Wish RuneScape could be played as well.
JudgeSavings 1 points 1y ago
hold on a second, that is a game i have wanted to play for, along time, is it free?
Fridux [OP] 1 points 1y ago
Not really, there's a trial that you can play up to level 20 without paying, but you can't do much that way. In addition, playing blind requires a sighted guide that you can follow in the game world. My add-on only makes the user interface accessible to the blind like myself, and in the future will add some functionality to aid in targeting and orientation.
JudgeSavings 1 points 1y ago
well still cool
BlindOG83 1 points 1y ago
This is really cool, I just subscribed to your YouTube channel. I hope to hear more about the progress of this project in the future. As a Blind Gamer I would really like to play World of Warcraft, one of the biggest things that we are missing as gamers who have lost our vision our more open world games that we can enjoy. This project may be the key to opening up the world of Warcraft for gamers who are blind and visually impaired.
Nighthawk321 1 points 1y ago
Wow this sounds great! You should set up a way for the community to donate to your project. Your efforts are much appreciated.
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