This raises a really interesting thought: Just because you're blind now, does not mean you'd have to be so in the game world. There would be some significant limitations based on the reason for blindness, but it's likely that we'll soon have the ability to directly feed sensation and sensory input to the brain. Thus, if your only problem is that your eyes are broken, that doesn't mean the game dev can't just pass your brain the visual input you'd be getting from your eyes. I'm aware there are folks this wouldn't apply to - if you lose your optic nerve, or instance, but once perfected, I could even see this being used as a "here's your site back" situation. -------------------------------------------------- From: "Luke Hewitt" <[email protected]> Sent: Monday, March 18, 2019 2:25 To: <[email protected]> Subject: Re: [blind-gamers] food for thought: How far you would go as to merging your reality with the gaming one?
Virtual reality sounds all very well, but the problem with having a disability is that the closer to reality things get, the more the limitations that having a disability places on everyday life will necessarily intrude into the virtual reality. this is why I love table top gaming with dice and other people, but absolutely refuse to do larp, that is live action role play, where you actually dress up in costume and hit people with plastic swords, since no, if I want to rp I don't want to Rp a blind person. This is also the same reason that the more complex graphics got, the less able my level of site was to keep up with them. Of course, there is the counter argument, that virtual reality could provide virtual tools for accessibility, just as rl tools for accessibility exist, devices with voiceover being an analogue to voice assistance for games, but thus far the access to truly virtual environments is still at a far more basic level than access to rl environments despite many efforts being made in that direction, (how many blind people are able to play world of war craft, second life or other heavily graphical virtual reality mmorpgs). A far more interesting prospect to me is that of augmented reality, that is, taking aspects of a virtual environment that enhance accessibility to that environment and mapping them onto the rl world. Look at idle games, games that use heavily analogue control, or games that use the player's rl location, adaptations which likely will lead to better accessibility or in general a more fun time for everyone. In terms of the pure experienced of imagined reality though, for me, nothing will beat the human imagination. I love games, and I love exploring virtual worlds, but reading to me is second to oxygen. Also, for all the fun experiences I've had in programmed online worlds, nothing beats a human gm and a set of players just telling interactive stories together. All the best, Dark. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Groups.io Links: You receive all messages sent to this group. View/Reply Online (#120408): https://groups.io/g/blind-gamers/message/120408 Mute This Topic: https://groups.io/mt/30468776/21656 Group Owner: [email protected] Unsubscribe: https://groups.io/g/blind-gamers/leave/607459/1071380848/xyzzy [[email protected]] -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
