Since we want all in the community to enjoy ops being it PvP mining etc I have ran into a problem as an FC…
Some people are DEAF!! which makes coms pointless for them and difficult to experience eve like the rest of us.
I want CSM to help push this issue to CCP to find a work around as the current broadcast system is slow and lacking when it’s not useful to give more information.
I can imagine it’s hard to be deaf, but EVE’s sound itself is not at all required to play the game.
Communication in EVE itself is via sight (chat) and as you mentioned, visible fleet broadcasts.
The problem lies outside the game: most groups use third party tools to communicate with voice chat rather than using the in-game text chat.
This means the solution to communication with deaf people in the fleet (or people who are unable to use their sound/headphones) already exists: talk in-game rather than outside of it. Or at least ask someone to relay the important FC messages in fleet chat. It wouldn’t be the first time I see that happen in a fleet.
As voice chats (mumble, teamspeak, discord) all happen outside the game, I don’t see the solution to those voice chats as something CCP can easily fix if players themselves aren’t willing to use the in-game text chat to include a deaf person.
Such a solution would mean that CCP builds their own voice chat that can compete with the scale and usability of mumble and discord, (not going to happen) and then builds a speech-to-text function within it.
However, with third party tools as the cause of the problem you could also look for a third party tool as solution for the problem. Speech-to-text applications have improved a lot the past few years, and I would be surprised if there is no third party tool a deaf person could use to follow what’s being said in voice chat.
Maybe someone here already has experience with good speech-to-text apps?
I’m not totally deaf. Yet. Though impaired hearing does often make it difficult to know what the FC said. The use of fleet broadcasts is very important to me. I don’t fleet with an FC that don’t use them. Fleet warp and the use of fleet chat helps a lot
EVE Online used to have RGB lighting support. Might have been AlienFX rather than something keyboard specific but it would help.
Too bad a lot of that tech like Nvidia 3D Vision has come and gone. It’s a hard business model and you see stuff like paid voice and audio plugins now as it’s a lot of work to maintain for the few people that want these features.
I also think there’s a few use cases of Sanderling with custom overlays to help with accessibility but AFAIK those are bespoke.
At the last summit I discussed with CCP an expansion to the broadcasts in adding more simple communications. This would aid in dealing with both hearing impaired and language barriers.
Something that is quite mature technologically is live sound-to-text. I really hope to see this sort of feature integrated into discord as soon as possible, and also as seperate, easy software that can tap into any audio stream - for other voice clients. This would have the power to revolutionise accessibility.
I think a simple solution would be more fleet broadcast options for that.
We already have stuff like attack, needs repair etc. But more options like “jump gate and wait on other side” would be great as well. Or “activate module X on Target Y” as well.
End of the month is getting close and I have yet to get my monthly quota of PAPS done.
I’m not looking forward to more: “Huh? What he (the FC) say do?” “Hmm. Lazy FC didn’t use fleet warp this time and the fleet is gone leaving me way behind” Fleet chat to the rescue, “Where yall at?”
Heck with this. Dock up, log out, back to playing WoW
Slave? Naw. Just makes me do things I normally wouldn’t do. Which is not a bad thing. Gives variety.
I didn’t pull myself away from WoW to do my paps lol I’ll just have to double up this month.
My nephew is deaf from birth, now 40, has no issue playing online games. He has a pretty decent speech to text program for most games. We played a lot of Apex Legends together and while I use a stereo headset, the game has speech to text built in. That’s fine, if CPP wants to invest in placing more software into their game, but it won’t help him, since he plays mostly CoD and other first person shooters.
He has told me before, he normally leaves the engine off for several reasons;
Who wants to see people cursing you out for losing a match?
He cannot hear other players approaching and tell the directional sound source.
It lags the games to have it convert audio to text, and by the time he replies or reacts it is usually too late.
He normally plays with me on Apex Legends and other people who know he is deaf. He prefers to use text chat and let the other player tell him where to look.
He is an excellent shot, I can’t hit the broadside of a barn in those games. He has no interest in Eve and calls it a virtual stock market game.
At the CSM Summit with the UI/UX team, We requested a fair amount of features to improve usability, features to aid deaf/hard of hearing players were part of that
Some form of sound to text system
Alternatively (or in addition), sound prompt visuals (FF14 has a non directional version of this, Fortnight has a directional version, as examples)
Addition of a Protanopia setting in the colour blind options
Fixes to the colour blind settings so more items are actually affected by the setting (Overheat status bars, heat damage, the actual visuals of the game ,etc)
Additions to fleet broadcast options
There were some others but I cant remember exactly, so probably best to not list them incase i misremember