Blind Gamer Defeated Lilith Thanks to Diablo 4's Accessibility Features

Posted 2023/08/31 at 2:25 PM by Jezartroz

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Comments

Comment by Kabookiejoe

That's awesome

Comment by DreadfuryDK

It's still really impressive and I'll always be able to praise Blizzard games' accessibility features even if I have issues with the games themselves, but I genuinely thought this was Uber Lilith for a second LMAO

Like, man, those would've been some incredibly useful accessibility features.

Comment by BlacKcuD

This is so cool.

Comment by pharazon

I have a friend who became completely blind a bit over 10 years ago. There's not a ton of games he can still play and even fewer that he can play and enjoy that do not require another person acting as a visual guide for the majority or all of the content. However, he has had a ton of praise for Diablo 4, and we played many hours it together online. Plus, he played quite a few hours of it alone as a rogue. He's been taking a break for about a month because of his work load at his job, but I know he expressed that he impressed with the blind accessibility in D4. He played some classic WoW around when Wrath classic launched by using the Sku add-on, which helps guide blind and seeing-impaired gamers; however, that just wasn't quite as a effective as having built-in fully-accessible options, so he he got frustrated with quite a few things and decided it wasn't worth the frustration. I hope the WoW and other Blizzard teams take a good look at what the D4 team achieved in accessibility and apply it to their other games in the future.

Comment by Shklii

No offense but I think they already know. D4 was made completely new with far more resources available to it than especially WoW. It will take more time to get WoW in particular caught up. Especially since it's an entirely different game type.

Comment by Renewal

Give credit where credit is due.

Improving accessibility is always a net benefit. (not to mention the cynical fact that one day, I might need this as well)

Comment by Nebrony

This is unbelievable. To see a joy around the sweet taste of victory, especially against all the odds, it's just marvelous. Chapeau bas Ross!

Comment by TheGoldenElm

That's so cool. I tested accessibility a long time ago and it was really bad. Great to see such improvements in the tech.

Comment by Jaiie

It's probably not good to say "No offense but..." when the overwhelming majority use of that phrase is a preamble to do exactly the opposite: Cause offense.

That being said, I'd say it's not because it is a different type of game. The game engine for WoW, while it has indeed received a LOT of updates over the last 18 years, is still fairly antiquated. It's a lot more work to try to rework that client than it is to start with a new one. As anyone who has ever dealt with tech debt has experienced will tell you, fixing something already created isn't always the fastest solution. More often than not, because of the aforementioned technical debt, most will usually just "blow it up and start over".

Diablo 4 has some benefit in that regard for a couple reasons as well. First, they get to start over. Second, because they have a different set of developers working on it. I'm not saying it is better or worse than WoW, I'm just saying its circumstances are different.

Comment by Easo

I am amazed at what some people can achieve. Wholesome indeed.

Comment by Waterbuffel

It's probably not good to say "No offense but..." when the overwhelming majority use of that phrase is a preamble to do exactly the opposite: Cause offense.

No offense but I think he was just referring to the fact that they already know their accessibility has improved compared to other games. I can hardly see any offense in that, definitely not enough to go ahead and point it out.

Comment by JugernautSmurf

This is amazing. GG Minor and good job Blizz on creating something that can have such a positive effect on people's lives.

Comment by FuryXHD

man his back story was rough, but i am so impressed at how well he was able to recover, it would have been extremely hard but my god...he was determined and he got there.

Comment by L34F

That's awesome!