Forgotten Kingdoms Forums

Posted: **Wed Oct 22, 2014 10:17 am**

As I grow in power and wisdom. I hope this post goes into the right place...
Moving on from my inadequate forum navigational skills. I as a blind player have thoroughly enjoyed FK thus far.

Even the existence of a map was not enough to detur me and although slower at using it than my functioning eyed counterparts have found it an advantage.

One thing that I've been pondering for a long time however is how to give me as a blind player the same level playing field when it comes to spells spent. I believe currently the system to see spells that need recharging is down to color which doesn't t pose as huge as a problem as one would think. But the solution I have for it is client specific, doesn't benefit any other blind players and is time consuming, making it useless when traversing dangerous zones or during combat.

Its taken me a while to come here and post about it because I was trying to think of a way that would take admins the least effort to implement. But all I can think of so far is a casted command that tells you how many instances of your memorized spells you have left, i.e.
magic missile: 1

Any other ideas other than using memory would be appreciated.
thanks

Posted: **Wed Oct 22, 2014 1:00 pm**

I've been thinking about this one a lot myself. Working off of memory is possible... But definitely not ideal.

My newest idea, I presume, would take little to implement and might do the trick... Why not just add a character (something like an asterisk or something) to the end of the spell names on the mem list which have been used?

Something like this...

<100%hp 87m 100%mv> me

Level 0 slots, (8/8) (Base:8, Item/Wis Bonus:0)
light create water mending
resistance detect magic mending
mending* read magic
Level 1 slots, (11/11) (Base:7, Item/Wis Bonus:3, Domain Bonus:1)
revive bless sanctuary
bless shield of faith invis to undead
protection resistance protection
bless water* comprehend languages*
Level 2 slots, (9/9) (Base:7, Item/Wis Bonus:1, Domain Bonus:1)
heroism bless sanctuary*
shield of faith bulls strength bulls strength*
remove paralysis eagles splendor bears endurance
Level 3 slots, (8/8) (Base:6, Item/Wis Bonus:1, Domain Bonus:1)
heroism* shield of faith cure disease
dispel magic remove curse create food
witch light water breathing
Level 4 slots, (7/7) (Base:5, Item/Wis Bonus:1, Domain Bonus:1)
divine power prayer death ward
neutralise poison owls wisdom water breathing
air walk
Level 5 slots, (5/5) (Base:4, Item/Wis Bonus:0, Domain Bonus:1)
heal stone skin holy sanctity
(C)ontinue, (R)efresh, (B)ack, (Q)uit: [C]c
flamestrike earth reaver
Level 6 slots, (3/3) (Base:2, Item/Wis Bonus:0, Domain Bonus:1)
stone skin* heal word of recall
Total: 51/51. Can cast 44 now.

Hmmm, I'm not sure how effective this would be for others, but it seems easy enough to do. Just a thought.

Posted: **Wed Oct 22, 2014 2:24 pm**

A good idea but that poses the same problem as the solution vipmud has for the blind not being able to see color in that to read over all of that would take more than 3 times the quick glance function of working eyes.

Its helped me define the goals the solution should meet though in that it should be able to offer blind players the ability to find out how many of what spells they have left in a similar amount of time frame as it would a sighted person to glance over their memorized list.

Thinking retrospectively. I believe even sighted players would benefit from the casted command as <spell name> followed by a number is easier and quicker to process than the current memorized layout. Though in terms of design a list format would still pose the issue of screen readers having to read down the list in order.

With that though int mind, If this supposed command was to be implemented it should probably have the ability to be selective as well as showing all spells memorized.
E.g. Syntax casted <spell name>
Input = casted magic missile
Output = 8 magic missiles left.

Posted: **Wed Oct 22, 2014 3:42 pm**

I see what you mean. My above idea would do better than the current list, but it still would be pretty slow.

yemin wrote: With that though int mind, If this supposed command was to be implemented it should probably have the ability to be selective as well as showing all spells memorized.
E.g. Syntax casted <spell name>
Input = casted magic missile
Output = 8 magic missiles left.

I would love the designers forever if they could do something like this! My only thought on it, though, is that you'd lose the convenience of knowing at what level each of those spells are memorised. I suppose this could be worked into this hypothetical command, but yeah...

yemin wrote: I believe even sighted players would benefit...

I do think so, too. I might be wrong, since my highest caster is only level 28, but it looks like the mem command gets quite large at higher levels, with several spell slots possible, and potentially at least a bit difficult to skim through when you're trying to do five other things at the same time. It's good to target a new feature at a particular group of people if they need it, but if the entire community could benefit, that's even better. And I think sighted players would appreciate something like this, too.

Anyone with functional eyes have an opinion on that?

Posted: **Fri Oct 24, 2014 11:55 pm**

I can't give a hard time on completion, but I'm working on something that might help you guys out. I used to be an admin on a mud where almost our entire player-base was blind, so I have a bit of experience with the difficulties you guys are facing.

Couple of questions that will help me out:

1) What Mud client are you using? Most of my experience is with Mush, and I'm currently experimenting with that to create a script/trigger that will allow you to type, say, 'mem ready' and have it actually omit all recovering spells, so you would only see what was ready to be cast. (Mush has a match color function, so it's the easiest to try this on, since I can actually set it to what's causing problems.)

2) What screen-reading program are you using? I want to test this out fully, and I don't know hardly anything about screen-readers, so I'll need to hear how the project functions as I go. Worthless to you guys if it doesn't sound right.

I'll post updates as I progress, but expect it to be slow. I'm a full time student, so I'm away from my computer the majority of the day. If you have any recommendations, feel free to post them or contact me directly.

Posted: **Sat Oct 25, 2014 4:13 pm**

Well, as for me I use a combination of Vipmud (mud client) and NVDA (Screen reader).

The main two screen readers are NVDA and JAWS and different sects of blind people will praise and despise another over what are near enough very samey products. But the important thing here is that 90% of keystrokes on both pieces of software are the same.

I'm not script savy enough to tell you the name of the syntax that I write my scripts in, but I do know that its different from mush.

I'll google a bit about it and let you know.

Posted: **Sat Oct 25, 2014 5:33 pm**

I use zMUD and JAWS. I know of a couple others on FK who use JAWS as well, but like Yemin said, a lot of the more advanced screen readers tend to work similarly. I could be mistaken, but I do believe zMUD also has a way to match colors. I just haven't quite figured out how yet.

Thank you very, very much for working on this!

Posted: **Sat Oct 25, 2014 6:54 pm**

From the reading I just did, Zmud does indeed have it. I'll be fooling around with that after I get this working fully on Mush.

Yemin: Is there a specific reason you use VIP? I've been talking to some of my old players, and they found Mush to be a much more efficient alternative. Works fine with NVDA, and has a lot more options for optimizing their experience.

Posted: **Sun Oct 26, 2014 5:53 pm**

Only really that I'm unclear how I'm supposed to interact NVDA with MuSH to make it accessible so far.
I've reinstalled it and had a spin round thinking the newest Ver of NVDA which is much better might be it since I haven't used mush since I lost my sight but nada.

Posted: **Sun Oct 26, 2014 6:09 pm**

More specifically, I'm unsure how to make my screen reader see / read the output from mush at the moment.

Posted: **Sun Oct 26, 2014 8:55 pm**

Hmm.. I'll do some tinkering and get back to you directly on it.

Posted: **Sun Oct 26, 2014 10:38 pm**

According to http://www.allinaccess.com/mc/ you should be able to download MushReader, which will interface with most screen readers.

The following link is a MushClient download that has the MushReader plugin built in. Might be easier to get running than manually installing the plugin, then running it for the individual world.

http://www.allinaccess.com/mc/mushclient-portable.exe

If you have any issues with it, let me know. I'm not near my computer right now, but I figured I'd post it since I found it.

Posted: **Mon Oct 27, 2014 9:10 am**

On an initial play of the ware Its reading but I'm unclear how to make it selectively read specific lines.
On vipmud this is done vial crtl+1 to crtl+9 to quickly read the latest 1 - 9 lines in the output.
I'll have a play around and see what I can find.
Worst comes to worst I may still have the contact of an old friend that used to MUD regularly and was a blind user of MUSH

Posted: **Wed Oct 29, 2014 1:08 am**

For what it's worth, I also use vipmud. I use it because the scripting is a lot simpler IMO than mush with its xml formatting and only semi accessible dialogs.

I do, however, use a modified version of mushclient for another mud I play, so I'm familiar with it. If you do find some ways to script some color recognition stuff for fk, I might just be tempted to switch.

The other area where I've noticed color used is speaking languages. So many times I've spoken non-common to someone, and had no idea I was doing so until they were going huh what now? Worse, I've been rattling on to another elf with Theia, who is an elf, using common not realizing that they were speaking elven. Theia would switch to elven herself except that I never realize what the other person has done unless they mention it in an emote, which a couple people have done and I've been super grateful for.

Posted: **Wed Oct 29, 2014 2:17 am**

I'm not really what you would call an 'active' player anymore, but it used to be (I thought) that if you were speaking a different language than those around you, when they spoke it specified their language (i.e., you're speaking elf-speak, Orcy is speaking orcish, when they talk it'll display 'Orcy says, in orcish, "Murder, pillage, loot!"')

I know that when I was playing regularly, and had been for years, I still made this mistake constantly. And I'm not sure if I could really do anything to help... Maybe a custom prompt client-side, to also list what language you're speaking, but that would be tricky (if it's even possible.)

I'll add that to my list of things to mess around with. I've admittedly never done any of this before, but from my tests so far it doesn't seem like the original intent will be as hard as I thought. Still not ready to really show anything, but I hope to have some real time to dedicate this weekend. Keep throwing out ideas that would make things better for you guys, and I'll work on them as I go.

(After I finish these, I've got some things I'm going to try that, if successful, should actually make the map useable for you. I'll share my ideas on that later, and you guys can weigh in.)

Posted: **Wed Oct 29, 2014 1:54 pm**

The effort is much appreciated
Thanks

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