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Discrimination against hearing impaired in a new mmo?(ESO)

CrownregentCrownregent Member UncommonPosts: 9
in Elder Scrolls Online

Hello.

As a born deaf person of 35 years old, I have played my share of mmos through the years.

Ultima Online was my first fully invested mmo and I was really thrilled that everything had to be written in order to be conveyed.

Then SWG came along and the same thread of info conveying was followed.

Wow started with missing speech bubbles here and there but they got fixed along the way.

Then there is Elder Scrolls Online...

Where to start? First Lydia and then the prophet... most people who is over the age of 20 cant properly hear what they say.

Then lots of the story chains where you have to follow people and they chat away you don't understand or hear what they say due to either crappy voice actors, weird accents or other issues.

Is any of this speech in writing? NO..... Not even in chat screen which would made it bearable.. but there has been times I have had to guess what the answer to questions were just because there wasn't any written proof to back up what I guessed.

Try to play the game from beginning to scratch with NO sound whatsoever... and then you maybe get what im upset about.

So in my honest opnion Eso is a discriminatory game against anyone who has a hearing impediment.

 

So Zenimax... unless u fix this shit.. u can forget me as a subscriber and probably everyone else who like to know the story in whole.

Crownregent

«13

Comments

  • MalviousMalvious Member UncommonPosts: 218
    you should write this on their forums or send a more constructive email to them. Here you will only get trolls trolling you.

    Fine, we'll compromise. I'll get my way & you'll find a way to be okay with that.

  • LyrianLyrian Member UncommonPosts: 412

    Same here! I am fairly hard of hearing and I have a pretty high reading speed as it is anyway. So listening to things get tedious fast.

     

    I was very dissipointed to find that ESO doesn't have subtitles. I don't play with sound as it is because it's hard enough to hear anything as it is.

     

    Bleh!

  • GotterdammerGotterdammer Member Posts: 36

    it sucks that they don't take your disability into account, it really does.

    It is NOT "discrimination", however. No company anywhere has any obligation to provide a product that meets your needs. Contact them and give them tips on how they can make the game more accessible and if they feel it's worth their time and resources to capture your segment of the market I'm sure they will totally work with you. If not, you'll either have to make do, or move on.

    Either way "discrimination" is a pretty heavy word to be throwing around when talking about completely optional leisure activities.

  • [Deleted User][Deleted User] Posts: 0
    The user and all related content has been deleted.

    image

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  • VorchVorch Member UncommonPosts: 793

    Here's a guide on getting NPC subtitles in ESO:

    http://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/discussion/62023/guide-how-to-get-npc-subtitles

    Also there is an to make subtitles more visible here:

    http://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/discussion/61852/please-tell-me-there-are-subtitles-otherwise-almost-all-lore-is-lost-to-me

    and here:

    http://www.esoui.com/downloads/info8-WykkydsFramework.html

     

    I hope that this helps :)

    "As you read these words, a release is seven days or less away or has just happened within the last seven days— those are now the only two states you’ll find the world of Tyria."...Guild Wars 2

  • AcidonAcidon Member UncommonPosts: 796

    This doesn't negate your crusade, but the best subtitle adding mod is here:

    http://www.esoui.com/downloads/info8-WykkydsFramework.html

     

    If you don't like using addons you can disable everything but the subtitles.  It's no different (and possibly better) than if ZOS did it themselves.

     

    I'm only partially hearing impaired from my days in car audio / SPL competition before safety was put into consideration, but I need the subtitles.  It's not a question of volume, it's the fact that I'm deaf to so many tones in the sound* spectrum.

     

    I understand that this doesn't justify anything, or whatever. 

    I'm just offering a solution provided by players due to Zenimax allowing addons like this to be used with the game.

     

    EDIT: Vorch beat me to it.  Ah well, here's confirmation.  image

  • KyleranKyleran Member LegendaryPosts: 44,087
    Originally posted by Gotterdammer

    it sucks that they don't take your disability into account, it really does.

    It is NOT "discrimination", however. No company anywhere has any obligation to provide a product that meets your needs. Contact them and give them tips on how they can make the game more accessible and if they feel it's worth their time and resources to capture your segment of the market I'm sure they will totally work with you. If not, you'll either have to make do, or move on.

    Either way "discrimination" is a pretty heavy word to be throwing around when talking about completely optional leisure activities.

    Totally not true.  I work in the financial industry, and recently many banks have been sued because their websites were not fully accessible for the hard of hearing, blind, and physically challenged.

    I just took a training course on how to properly design all of our user interfaces to always include allowances for voice, speech and physically impaired so that in every situation, the user can opt to listen, magnify, read, or click via keyboard instead of a mouse to any functionality on the screen.

    The OP has a legitimate complaint, the characters in game frequently have conversations that you walk up on, and without proper chat bubbles over their heads, I doubt the OP is even aware of the information being delivered.

    Perhaps the rules are different for games vs financial or service user interfaces, but know in our industry companies have had to pay out hundreds of millions of dollars for failing to provide for proper accessibility.

    Just one of many articles you can easily find via Google:

    http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424127887324373204578374483679498140

     

    "True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde 

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  • fineflufffinefluff Member RarePosts: 561
    Actually you can enable NPC dialog in the chat options, the gear icon on the chat window. I played the game that way while having zone chat disabled and the game was much more enjoyable for me. Especially when playing with the sound off, listening to music.
  • Flyte27Flyte27 Member RarePosts: 4,574
    I feel like there is something lost in video games in general with audio (and other things).  It's great to have things easy(accessible) and listen to someone talking, but at the same time I feel like I'm becoming to lazy to read in games.  I have to now force myself to read text.  Once it wouldn't have been a major issue because I was used to it.  It's the same with things like GPS and look for group tools.  Without the social interaction you lose the skills and without having to find things on your own your mental map in your mind finds it harder when you are face with a situation in which you need to find something without something or someone to show you the way.
  • nariusseldonnariusseldon Member EpicPosts: 27,775
    wait .. there is no subtitle option? which is more or less standard on video games.
  • CrazKanukCrazKanuk Member EpicPosts: 6,130
    Originally posted by Vorch

    Here's a guide on getting NPC subtitles in ESO:

    http://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/discussion/62023/guide-how-to-get-npc-subtitles

    Also there is an to make subtitles more visible here:

    http://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/discussion/61852/please-tell-me-there-are-subtitles-otherwise-almost-all-lore-is-lost-to-me

    and here:

    http://www.esoui.com/downloads/info8-WykkydsFramework.html

     

    I hope that this helps :)

    +11!! 

     

    Awesome tip! I have perfect hearing and sometimes don't walk close enough to understand wtf they're saying. Plus, no option to say, "What'd you just say? Sorry I was just collecting some Jute." 

     

     

    Crazkanuk

    ----------------
    Azarelos - 90 Hunter - Emerald
    Durnzig - 90 Paladin - Emerald
    Demonicron - 90 Death Knight - Emerald Dream - US
    Tankinpain - 90 Monk - Azjol-Nerub - US
    Brindell - 90 Warrior - Emerald Dream - US
    ----------------

  • Unknown

    If they were discriminatory then they would being these things to PURPOSELY get rid of you.

     

    So think about just how arrogant the use of discriminatory is in this context.

     

    I know, I know this is the nature of current times in the western world.  But think about it for a second.  Just because they don't give a rat's ass about your needs doesn't mean they are purposely trying to "get" you.  And if you expect everyone to always attempt to meet your needs you may be a self absorbed fool.

     

    Unfortunately this is the status of discourse in modern times.    Apparently everyone else thinks everyone else is stupid or evil.  Well, eventually that sort of has to breakdown now doesn't it?   As the end of the circle gets back to the beginning, you guarantee a finger gets pointed at you as well. 

  • PyatraPyatra Member Posts: 644
    Originally posted by CrazKanuk
    Originally posted by Vorch

    Here's a guide on getting NPC subtitles in ESO:

    http://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/discussion/62023/guide-how-to-get-npc-subtitles

    Also there is an to make subtitles more visible here:

    http://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/discussion/61852/please-tell-me-there-are-subtitles-otherwise-almost-all-lore-is-lost-to-me

    and here:

    http://www.esoui.com/downloads/info8-WykkydsFramework.html

     

    I hope that this helps :)

    +11!! 

     

    Awesome tip! I have perfect hearing and sometimes don't walk close enough to understand wtf they're saying. Plus, no option to say, "What'd you just say? Sorry I was just collecting some Jute." 

     

     

     Agreed, this works great, I didn't even know you could get subtitles, thanks Vorch.

  • QuirhidQuirhid Member UncommonPosts: 6,230
    Certain services need to be made available to everyone (by law?). Games are not included in those services. This is not discrimination.

    I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been -Wayne Gretzky

  • General-ZodGeneral-Zod Member UncommonPosts: 868
    Originally posted by Quirhid
    Certain services need to be made available to everyone (by law?). Games are not included in those services. This is not discrimination.

    This.

    At the end of the day this is just entertainment folks...

    image
  • udonudon Member UncommonPosts: 1,803
    Originally posted by Crownregent

    Hello.

    As a born deaf person of 35 years old, I have played my share of mmos through the years.

    Ultima Online was my first fully invested mmo and I was really thrilled that everything had to be written in order to be conveyed.

    Then SWG came along and the same thread of info conveying was followed.

    Wow started with missing speech bubbles here and there but they got fixed along the way.

    Then there is Elder Scrolls Online...

    Where to start? First Lydia and then the prophet... most people who is over the age of 20 cant properly hear what they say.

    Then lots of the story chains where you have to follow people and they chat away you don't understand or hear what they say due to either crappy voice actors, weird accents or other issues.

    Is any of this speech in writing? NO..... Not even in chat screen which would made it bearable.. but there has been times I have had to guess what the answer to questions were just because there wasn't any written proof to back up what I guessed.

    Try to play the game from beginning to scratch with NO sound whatsoever... and then you maybe get what im upset about.

    So in my honest opnion Eso is a discriminatory game against anyone who has a hearing impediment.

     

    So Zenimax... unless u fix this shit.. u can forget me as a subscriber and probably everyone else who like to know the story in whole.

    Crownregent

    There is no excuse for them not having a subtitle option in game I agree.

    However as a fix you can install this mod http://www.esoui.com/downloads/info8-WykkydsFramework.html which does add it.  I use it because often I have the volume turned down and can have a hard time hearing NPC's and it helps a lot.

     

  • HorusraHorusra Member EpicPosts: 4,411
    Originally posted by Kyleran
    Originally posted by Gotterdammer

    it sucks that they don't take your disability into account, it really does.

    It is NOT "discrimination", however. No company anywhere has any obligation to provide a product that meets your needs. Contact them and give them tips on how they can make the game more accessible and if they feel it's worth their time and resources to capture your segment of the market I'm sure they will totally work with you. If not, you'll either have to make do, or move on.

    Either way "discrimination" is a pretty heavy word to be throwing around when talking about completely optional leisure activities.

    Totally not true.  I work in the financial industry, and recently many banks have been sued because their websites were not fully accessible for the hard of hearing, blind, and physically challenged.

    I just took a training course on how to properly design all of our user interfaces to always include allowances for voice, speech and physically impaired so that in every situation, the user can opt to listen, magnify, read, or click via keyboard instead of a mouse to any functionality on the screen.

    The OP has a legitimate complaint, the characters in game frequently have conversations that you walk up on, and without proper chat bubbles over their heads, I doubt the OP is even aware of the information being delivered.

    Perhaps the rules are different for games vs financial or service user interfaces, but know in our industry companies have had to pay out hundreds of millions of dollars for failing to provide for proper accessibility.

    Just one of many articles you can easily find via Google:

    http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424127887324373204578374483679498140

     

    Better check again ADA here in American is only that accommadations have to be made for communications with the deaf.  The actual product does not have to be.  The game would be the actual product the communication from them would be ZOS emails, phone calls, or advertisements.  Not all TV shows do closed captioning as an example, but the TV station has to close caption all news or messages from the stations to viewers.

  • PyatraPyatra Member Posts: 644
    Originally posted by udon
    Originally posted by Crownregent

    Hello.

    As a born deaf person of 35 years old, I have played my share of mmos through the years.

    Ultima Online was my first fully invested mmo and I was really thrilled that everything had to be written in order to be conveyed.

    Then SWG came along and the same thread of info conveying was followed.

    Wow started with missing speech bubbles here and there but they got fixed along the way.

    Then there is Elder Scrolls Online...

    Where to start? First Lydia and then the prophet... most people who is over the age of 20 cant properly hear what they say.

    Then lots of the story chains where you have to follow people and they chat away you don't understand or hear what they say due to either crappy voice actors, weird accents or other issues.

    Is any of this speech in writing? NO..... Not even in chat screen which would made it bearable.. but there has been times I have had to guess what the answer to questions were just because there wasn't any written proof to back up what I guessed.

    Try to play the game from beginning to scratch with NO sound whatsoever... and then you maybe get what im upset about.

    So in my honest opnion Eso is a discriminatory game against anyone who has a hearing impediment.

     

    So Zenimax... unless u fix this shit.. u can forget me as a subscriber and probably everyone else who like to know the story in whole.

    Crownregent

    There is no excuse for them not having a subtitle option in game I agree.

    However as a fix you can install this mod http://www.esoui.com/downloads/info8-WykkydsFramework.html which does add it.  I use it because often I have the volume turned down and can have a hard time hearing NPC's and it helps a lot.

     

     Or you can read this thread.... there is a setting already in game and you can make it pretty with add-ons... it was posted by Vorch.

  • evilizedevilized Member UncommonPosts: 576
    Apparently OP didn't get the response he wanted the last time he posted this same exact thread on the general forum and decided to try his luck here.

    Go pity-fish somewhere else. It was already explained that companies aren't required to have disability related support in their products, only in communication with customers. As I said in your other thread, stop trying to be a victim and take some personal responsibility. This sort of behavior is really pathetic.
  • udonudon Member UncommonPosts: 1,803

    Pyatra, what the hell did you do to your post and was it on purpose because it sucks?

    Those are not subtitles they put the NPC chat into the text box which is already busy enough thank you.  The add-on adds a true subtitle bar to the screen that I find much more useful.

    Use it or don't I'm just making a suggestion to try and be helpful.

  • indefindef Member UncommonPosts: 344
    Originally posted by Crownregent

    Hello.

    As a born deaf person of 35 years old, I have played my share of mmos through the years.

    Ultima Online was my first fully invested mmo and I was really thrilled that everything had to be written in order to be conveyed.

    Then SWG came along and the same thread of info conveying was followed.

    Wow started with missing speech bubbles here and there but they got fixed along the way.

    Then there is Elder Scrolls Online...

    Where to start? First Lydia and then the prophet... most people who is over the age of 20 cant properly hear what they say.

    Then lots of the story chains where you have to follow people and they chat away you don't understand or hear what they say due to either crappy voice actors, weird accents or other issues.

    Is any of this speech in writing? NO..... Not even in chat screen which would made it bearable.. but there has been times I have had to guess what the answer to questions were just because there wasn't any written proof to back up what I guessed.

    Try to play the game from beginning to scratch with NO sound whatsoever... and then you maybe get what im upset about.

    So in my honest opnion Eso is a discriminatory game against anyone who has a hearing impediment.

     

    So Zenimax... unless u fix this shit.. u can forget me as a subscriber and probably everyone else who like to know the story in whole.

    Crownregent

     

    I would think after 35 years of being deaf you'd be more understanding that not all of society sees your issue as a high priority.

     

    I was born with a blood problem that makes me susceptible to blood clots (I'm 26).  This makes sitting in chairs for long amounts of time risky for me because the blood pools in my legs.  However I don't go and bitch at every movie theater, stadium, car, bus, train, or office calling it "discriminatory" for not allowing me to stand up or move around as much as I need to.

     

    90% of the audio content in ESO is also written out on your screen.  Should the other 10% have subtitles?  Sure.  Does that mean you're justified in calling the company "discriminatory" and bitching about it?  No.

     

    Next time write a constructive suggestion on their forums.  All you needed to say was, "Hey!  I'm deaf.  It'd be nice if everything had subtitles.  Thanks!"  Instead you came here to rant and bitch.  

     

    I'm sorry you're deaf, but you get absolutely no sympathy from me.

     

     

  • ComanComan Member UncommonPosts: 2,178
    Originally posted by Kyleran
    Originally posted by Gotterdammer

    it sucks that they don't take your disability into account, it really does.

    It is NOT "discrimination", however. No company anywhere has any obligation to provide a product that meets your needs. Contact them and give them tips on how they can make the game more accessible and if they feel it's worth their time and resources to capture your segment of the market I'm sure they will totally work with you. If not, you'll either have to make do, or move on.

    Either way "discrimination" is a pretty heavy word to be throwing around when talking about completely optional leisure activities.

    Totally not true.  I work in the financial industry, and recently many banks have been sued because their websites were not fully accessible for the hard of hearing, blind, and physically challenged.

    It is still not discrimination though. I assume banks have other rules as they have a social responsiblity. A bigger one at least then I would have if I made some random webshop. Now do not get me wrong, it is good pratice to just design with impaired poeple in mind and once you get the hang of it, it does not even cost you time. However by doing something special for someone who is blind, you do not treat him equally. Ignoring there needs however means you threat them equally. 

    Else every website is discriminating, unless offcourse they are written in every language known to man. 

  • dbgagerdbgager Member UncommonPosts: 175
    Its not discrimintatiion. They simply did not include it in the game. Its a business decision.  There is no guarantee that all people can play this game. And they are not under any responsibility to make it so all people can play.
  • PanzerbasePanzerbase Member Posts: 423
    I understand your point but from a legal perspective there is no discrimination on their part, they are not legally by any law to adjust for your disability.
  • bmw66bmw66 Member UncommonPosts: 141
    Originally posted by Kyleran
    Originally posted by Gotterdammer

    it sucks that they don't take your disability into account, it really does.

    It is NOT "discrimination", however. No company anywhere has any obligation to provide a product that meets your needs. Contact them and give them tips on how they can make the game more accessible and if they feel it's worth their time and resources to capture your segment of the market I'm sure they will totally work with you. If not, you'll either have to make do, or move on.

    Either way "discrimination" is a pretty heavy word to be throwing around when talking about completely optional leisure activities.

    Totally not true.  I work in the financial industry, and recently many banks have been sued because their websites were not fully accessible for the hard of hearing, blind, and physically challenged.

    I just took a training course on how to properly design all of our user interfaces to always include allowances for voice, speech and physically impaired so that in every situation, the user can opt to listen, magnify, read, or click via keyboard instead of a mouse to any functionality on the screen.

    The OP has a legitimate complaint, the characters in game frequently have conversations that you walk up on, and without proper chat bubbles over their heads, I doubt the OP is even aware of the information being delivered.

    Perhaps the rules are different for games vs financial or service user interfaces, but know in our industry companies have had to pay out hundreds of millions of dollars for failing to provide for proper accessibility.

    Just one of many articles you can easily find via Google:

    http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424127887324373204578374483679498140

     

    Financial institutions are NEEDED services and need to cater to all.  Playing an MMO is NOT a "needed" service it is a game.  While I appreciate the fact the OP has a disability and his desire to experience the game as it was intended there is no LEGAL obligation to make the game handicap accessible so to speak.

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