Hey there everyone, I'm Hatred, a friend of Aprone. I've been reading through the posts about his latest game, Castaways, and I've noticed a small topic about Bridging the Gap between Sighted and Blind gamers. Figured I'd toss in my thoughts on the topic since I have a different perspective than most of you do.
First up, I think that having Blind and Sighted gamers playing together, either competitively or cooperatively, would be amazing and I fully support the idea. However, as a Sighted gamer, I've seen a lot of the bad things that can come from it so I have to warn you that if it's done incorrectly, you could end up having a lot more problems than you'd want. From what I've seen while browsing through the emails here and the forums at Audiogames.net, the Blind gaming community is full of awesome people that truly want to play new and inventive games. You guys seem eager to explore together, to build together, and to wage war together. That's awesome, and as a gamer I love that. Heck, that's one of the reasons I've been pushing Aprone to do more multiplayer games! I want to play with you guys too! Unfortunately, there are many Sighted gamers that don't feel the same. The majority of Sighted gamers are, in essence, similar to Blind gamers. They want to relax and enjoy the games they love with cool people. However, there are many that feel that they have the right to ruin the fun for everyone. Hackers, Spammers, Trolls, and just regular old Idiots run rampant on many multiplayer games, set on causing havoc for the sake of their own twisted fun. Aprone and I actually first met in a small game called Babo Violent 2, a multiplayer shooter game. We played together, and eventually became good friends. The game was fast, fun, and easy to pick up and play. However, it had little to no hack protection. I'll admit, I was one of the Hackers that found a lot of the security holes and had some fun seeing what I could do with the game. However, I wasn't malicious about it. I simply did it on my own, away from other players so as not to ruin their fun. Unfortunately, a large number of players thought differently. They ran rampant, making themselves invincible, cheating in the game, harassing other players, and even crashing the servers if they were bored. At one time players couldn't even get into a game because the servers were down constantly. It's sad but true, some people truly enjoy causing other people grief. Now, I'm not saying that you all should avoid having sighted players play with you. By all means, I think that goal is great and you should pursue it full force. However, be aware that with it comes some pretty hefty problems. It will require developers to rethink how they code their games. They'll have to take into consideration some form of anti-cheat programming, or even have a way for admins to remove cheaters from the game. It's definitely doable but will require a lot more work to make it happen. Anyways, my long rant is over. Lol! Keep gaming my friends! --- Gamers mailing list __ [email protected] If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to [email protected]. You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to [email protected].
