Provisions for deaf people

[BraTTy 0]

My son is almost 4 and has been playing OFP since he was 1 and he is very good at it.My 1 year old daughter is also deaf.

We don't want to get into discussion about violence in video games if that bothers you that my children play video games but for cripes sake the video games are more decent than cartoons.At least with OFP my son understands that life isn't endless and he is not the Wile E Coyote

Not sure if this visual clues has been discussed before.I am hoping that OFP2 has more visual clues for people that can't hear and for people that play without sound.

Just that many games have signs like the screen flashes red when hit.Screen shakes when hit,vehicle shakes when running etc..

The guy that sprints and gets tired and breathes heavy...my son has no way of telling when that happens,he sprints constantly and has one tired dude

Already is smoke from exhaust and such,but more of that please,lol

Another good thing would be a sound level meter (player configurable to show or not).Just so he can tell when shots have been fired or a vehicle nearby or such.L&R level would be fine but a round radar type display showing sound direction would be nice.

Your prolly saying no way but please just consider it...visual clues to go with the audio please

Not that there are many people in the military that are deaf (maybe after years of gunfire they must be hearing impaired)

But this a public civilian game too.

I even play many games without sound so I can understand what my children are experiencing

Some of these things I can incorporate within the game myself but would be better OEM

Thank you for your time

[CrunchyFrog 0]

Yeah.... that would be really nice. I usually hear music when i play games. A "meter" like the fuel etc. for your stamina would be great. some sort of circle to see where the explosions and shot come from would be great too

[ozanzac 0]

I'd support such a device, but would want the option to turn it off, as I prefer no or minimal HUD elements.

[JdB 151]

Yeah, like an option in the Preferences tool, so you can select what parts of your HUD you want to show, and which not, and which extra help features you want to enable.

Good idea, would make the game even more unique (not a single game has extra help features for deaf/hearing impaired people).

They have the same right as us to enjoy OFP/OFP2

[hardrock 1]

I'd really like such a thing. I'm actually deaf on one ear and mostly playing with a headset, I'd be so glad if there was ever a game on which you could switch to mono and have a small hud element which shows you the direction of noice (Ghost Recon had such a thing, I liked it). Of course it'd be great if you could choose the hud elements in the options or preferences of the game.

[gandalf the white 0]

wow! on Doom III forums there was a discussion like this, and it turned right into a flamewar of putting down misformed children, not letting them play, don't want to suffer because of them , etc..

i'd say go ahead! looks like a nice idea to me too! if you have a laptop with one speaker you can play on that!

[BraTTy 0]

Thank you for the decent comments guys.

What got me thinking about it again was that I reinstalled OFP again a few days ago (fresh reformat) and my son got excited and played it for hours.He really loves OFP.

He can spot the OFP icon on anyones computer and try to stop him from firing it up and playing,lol

He has learned so much from OFP,it mostly started when I started modelling and he would always be interested and his mouse skills started developing within O2,he would rotate the view in Bulldozer for me on all the addons I worked on and looked at.He has even done some modelling and even deleted my Wildcat addon when I wasn't home.

From OFP he has learned...

Mouse control,keyboard control.Driving computer vehicles and it even made use of the scroll button (to get in/out of vehicles),cooperation,friendly fire etc...

OFP has been a tool for him learning some ASL as we taught him the signs for - hurt,tank,car,truck,motorcycle,bike,chopper,friend,plane,rifle,backpack,stars,clouds you name it there are so many things that we can relate some signs to.

No other game (bubble popping,incredible machine etc..) has drawn his interest like OFP and shown him so much.

He did play Tribes 2 too,but thats not realistic and only strengthened his motor skills from it.

If OFP had more of the visual clues I know he would even be a competitive player even at 4 years old.( he plays BF42 online too)

Even tho I am busy writing some Pocket PC programs,I reinstalled OFP,O2 and OFPanim so I can work on some ideas I have for a ASL Interpreter addon for OFP ,and he will help me with it and learn more sign language and hopefully develop addonmaker skills

Thank you all for the support and thank you BIS for such a great game (learning tool)

[Raw 0]

Wow, that's one talented little kid you have there! I had to reread your message to check that I got the age right!

While not deaf myself, I can certainly relate to the problem and agree that if the game can be made more accessible it would be a good thing. The same goes for other handicaps, for instance would an option to have large fonts with black banners behind it make it more accessible for those with visual impairments.

Even for the rest of us, there may be situations where it would be useful.

Playing on a laptop on a train or aircraft (OFP works fine there, crashing 737s into WTC in MS Flightsim is slightly unpopular) will not make you popular of you blast the sound at your fellow passengers.

I sometimes gather a bunch of friends and we play on my LAN, and the sound level at these occasions when ten people all try to crank up their volume higher than everybody else makes it pretty damn hard to hear anything, let alone think. For me, this is especially hard, since I usually turn down the volume, sneak up on an enemy, crank up the volume to max and hit him with the loudest weapon I have.

I don't know about other countries, but here (in Sweden) we have a law that forces software companies to provide accessibility features in their products. This law is excellent, since it forces software developers like me to consider these issues throughout the development. I don't think the law has been tested on a game yet, but it may very well happen.

For the people with disabilities, especially children, it is not only about playing the game. It is about being able to do the same things their friends do. A pinball (another big interest of mine) rental company here in Sweden adapted their machines in such a way that they could be used by people who need special equipment to control them (I don't remember exactly how, I think they just plugged their ordinary controller into the machine.). Suddenly, kids who had been sitting at home in wheelchairs could go out and be a part of normal activities with their friends. It does not take a lot to feel like you do not belong and it does not take a lot to make you feel like you do belong. Small things like these make a huge difference.

So I say:

Do what you can to make this game accessible to people with special needs. Small things that are easy to implement can go a long way. I don't care if it increase the price a little or delays the release a little. If OFP2 becomes as big as OFP1, which I think will happen, perhaps it can start a trend in this area. It could give a lot of goodwill and perhaps "Accessibility enabled" could become an important stamp of approval to have on the box.

[DracoPaladore 0]

wow! on Doom III forums there was a discussion like this, and it turned right into a flamewar of putting down misformed children,  not letting them play, don't want to suffer because of them , etc..

My favorite was the comparison of a deaf person playing a game without subtitles to a blind person driving a car

But I support any sort of extras taht would allow all players an equal chance in enjoying the game experience.

[bn880 5]

Yeah why not, I think these are all good requests, as long as they can be switched off/on in difficulty etc.

Also, if any sound level meters: BIS, make them configurable in config.cpp, as I am not 100% sure everyone will be using the same sound levels as you do in the future.

[shinRaiden 0]

There's plenty of space in the resource.cpp file to implement additional unitinfo properties and hud characteristics, what would be nice is to be able to dynamically write those values, say to change the RGBA value or toggle displayed or not.

Conversely, having grown up with poor eyesight, I've mentally grown to rely more on my hearing for situational awareness, and sight-touch for localized sensing. This of course is aggravated by the sound ranging issue. so many times I'll be driving around and hear a helicopter, hop out with an AA launcher, and about the time I get chumped I remember that the helicopter is miles away.

Perhaps an additional config value, of 0 to 1 defining what % of external noise is hearable (disabled on turnout or doors opened) would help. Actually, it would need to be two values:

hearExternalSound : 0.75; // hearing is 75% of normal

hearExternalSoundWhenEngineOn : 0.5; // hearing is 50% when engine is on

Impacts and plinks would be exempt, ie always 100%.

Maybe adding a doors grouping to the anims, so that if a member of the doors grouping is animated in a non-default state, the sound levels would be 100%.