Please add (text?) cues to Rainbow Puzzle

[zeonardo]

FYI (if you think my help post above is somewhat offensive)

I tried to help not as a solution to the issue, but so you can complete your quest before/if they implement a fix.

If you know it's a color based puzzle and yet you attempt to solve it, it's more than overcoming a game challenge. It's overcoming a life challenge and it's something wonderful.

Not everything in real life is "designed" to color blinds or lefties or dexterous, and someone who's trying to help you to overcome it or make it easier for you is not an offender. If you rather doing it all alone as a personal challenge, then maybe fixing is not a good solution as it's "helping" in some way.

About the puzzle in rainbow: What if it had no color from start and you had to step on the plates a certain number of times in a certain order?

Think about it.

[Hokiewa]

If you accomodate every little request, it amounts to a big request. Beyond that, the nature of the quest is the colours of the rainbow -- if our fearless hero is colour blind, then you should be having trouble here...I doubt the monsters set up their security to be handicap-accessible.

Under this theory, no "little" request would ever happen. Which is patently false.

[Cyr]

Beyond that, the nature of the quest is the colours of the rainbow -- if our fearless hero is colour blind, then you should be having trouble here...I doubt the monsters set up their security to be handicap-accessible.

Crazy thing about roleplaying...you are not actually playing yourself.

As for monsters setting up this particular security setup...yeah I would have walked out of the roleplaying session where a DM thought that this made any sense what so ever as a security setup. Really the only people that this would work against are color blind people.

[BOgre]

simplest solution is to have the color of the button be named in the focus orb. even if you can't read, or can't read english, you should have no problem pattern recognizing "red" "orange" etc, even if you don't understand what the characters mean. step on the button, step off, target the button, read/recognize the description in the focus orb.

for those arguing against this, stop. it's not about you. you can solve the puzzle: grats.

[herzkos]

first, I would love a color blind only puzzle (one that is significantly easier for a color blind
person than a non-color blind person). not sure how they'd set it up, but it would be awesome.

second, I do indeed think they should have tags in some way that tell you what color the button
lit up to. preferably, by having a rainbow show up stretching from the steps to the door or the altar to the
door. the light bar could have the color written in the middle of the arc (over the altar). you'd still
have to know the colors of the rainbow and the correct configuration from top to bottom or the other way.
and it would truly be a "rainbow in the dark "

[MrkGrismer]

first, I would love a color blind only puzzle (one that is significantly easier for a color blind
person than a non-color blind person). not sure how they'd set it up, but it would be awesome.

You could set one up by having symbols made up of the two colors that some color-blind people can not tell apart. Normals wouldn't be able to make out the symbols very easily, but you would need to have different ones for different types of color-blind people.

It would be interesting, but maybe ddo would not be the best place for such a thing...

[My2Cents]

If you accomodate every little request, it amounts to a big request. Beyond that, the nature of the quest is the colours of the rainbow -- if our fearless hero is colour blind, then you should be having trouble here...I doubt the monsters set up their security to be handicap-accessible.

This isn't Reavers Fate, where it's a largely arbitrary and random puzzle.

Beyond that, there is a large amount of software out there to assist people with identifying colours. Why ask the devs to do what you can do yourself?

What software will run concurrently with DDO? There is indeed a great deal of software out there. Have you tried any of it while playing DDO? The ones I've tried can't coexist with DDO's open window. I am also unsure if such software would violate the Terms of Use. If you have any recommendations for particular software please let me know.

I am not asking to have every little request accommodated, only one specific request to be addressed. I don't even mind if it was unacceptable, as long as I knew it had been considered. Nor am I asking that DDO be "handicapped accessible" (whatever you define that to be.) That's just plain silly.

I ask again, whats the big deal? Why such opposition? Although I DO thank everyone. With all this unexpected opposition to (and some support for) what I thought was a little thing, the issue stands a much better chance of being seen and evaluated by a dev. I do remember awhile back one of the Turbine Reps specifically saying it was their intention to address issues for the color-blind, so I hope that person has a chance to see this thread.

[blkcat1028]

I fail to see how having the colours pop up in the focus orb would detract from the puzzle. It would be providing information that a person with normal colour vision already has access to.

[Tobril]

/signed, with one addition to the OP request…

Make a UI option for things like color recognition issues. The change to the reaver
puzzle made it really hard for me to operate because the pastel colours were harder
to discern from each other than the previous shade/hue/whatever.

Handicapped people should be accommodated, but don’t mess it up for the rest of us.


As far as “things should be hard” arguments…I’m a fat old guy but my character can
run forever. How enjoyable would this GAME be if your character had to stop every
couple of minutes to catch his breath?

[Delt]

What software will run concurrently with DDO? There is indeed a great deal of software out there.

Colorblind Assistant works with DDO and offers a text-based definition of the colour your mouse is over. I suppose if people can't read english, that's not a solution...but how far down the minority scale are we going to go exactly?

But I have to ask, why is it up to me to spend 30 seconds on google, downloading a small app, loading DDO and taking one minute to test...I'm not even colour blind.

I ask again, whats the big deal? Why such opposition?

Not a big deal for me, I'm just stating why I think it's a silly request. In the context of the quest it's silly, with regards to the untimed nature and the simplistic puzzle it's silly and that software already exists to assist just makes the whole thing asinine.

/shrug

[BOgre]

delt, your results are ... not bad. a grudging +1 for ya. colorblind assistant works really well, provided you switch to windowed mode, as it doesn't 'stay on top' when DDO is running full screen. So, it's a solution, but still not a really good one. In-game support, like the focus orb idea, would be far better.

[blkcat1028]

Colorblind Assistant works with DDO and offers a text-based definition of the colour your mouse is over. I suppose if people can't read english, that's not a solution...but how far down the minority scale are we going to go exactly?

But I have to ask, why is it up to me to spend 30 seconds on google, downloading a small app, loading DDO and taking one minute to test...I'm not even colour blind.



Not a big deal for me, I'm just stating why I think it's a silly request. In the context of the quest it's silly, with regards to the untimed nature and the simplistic puzzle it's silly and that software already exists to assist just makes the whole thing asinine.

/shrug

Nice find on the software. I hadn't heard of that one yet. So, thanks.

It works quite well actually. I have to run in windowed mode and alt + tab to get it in front but that's a small price to pay.

I really like that fact that it give the RGB values of the colours as well.

+1 to you Delt

[ButtersStotch]

I certainly don't mind things being added to help with colorblindness. Any sort of option in UI to help with disabilities is perfectly fine, and I definitely encourage Turbine to implement that sort of thing.

I do, however, have a problem with the 'but my hireling can bork the puzzle' and 'but then I can't solo' arguments. If you're doing -Vale- and haven't figured out how to put your hireling on standby.. you -should- have trouble with the puzzle. Lol. Similarly, there are lots of things that I can't solo because it -physically requires- multiple players. Some of those can be bypassed with a hireling, but others (and I am talking mostly Necropolis here) force a party to split. And, as simple as the quest may be, I am stuck with waiting for a group or forcing my boyfriend to help me.

As much as I may detest it, it -is- an MMO.. so we're kind of stuck when it comes to what we can do solo.


I'll /sign for aiding the colorblind people, though. Preferably with something that can be toggled on or off in the UI.

[My2Cents]

But I have to ask, why is it up to me to spend 30 seconds on google, downloading a small app, loading DDO and taking one minute to test...I'm not even colour blind.

I very much appreciate your finding one, but why do you assume I did not give it a good effort before asking? I would not have even asked if I had not made what I thought was a good effort first. In fact, had I found that one, I might not even have posted my original request, although it does still have merit. I'm going to try that one next time I'm at the rainbow puzzle and see how well it does.

I had tried many applications for several hours while sitting at the Rainbow Puzzle, and could not get anything useful that would work. I tried a variety of color grabbers, etc. This was also not the first time I tried, and I gave up in frustration. I must have gotten unlucky with my search terms and/or was too frustrated to engage excellent "search fu".

Thanks!

[Farayon]

I've never had any issues with this, but by all means, anything and everything that assists colorblind or otherwise visually impaired players should be top priority for the Devs above anything else.

[arminius]

I really think a lot of folks are missing the point of the thread. The devs have over the last few years made a lot of changes to the game to make it easier for color blind people. Wheel puzzles got text descriptions of colors, and the runes on them were made higher contrast. The cooldown timers got significantly darker. Those are just a couple of examples off the top of my head, I know there are more.

All the thread is saying is, don't forget about the Rainbow puzzle as part of this ongoing project. Nobody is saying, OMG all work on PrEs or Druids or new content must stop until the supreme issue of the day, the unfriendliness of the Rainbow puzzle to color blind people, is remediated, Now Now Now, because I said so, so Nyah Nyah Poo Poo to everything else in the game that could possibly matter to anyone else. Get a grip, and leave the drama in drama class (or on Khyber) where it belongs.

Almost all color blind people are male, and the vast majority of players of DDO and other video games are male, and it is just good programming practice to take color blindness into account in GUI and environment design. This is just one area that could use a bit of love in that regard, if possible. That's it.

[Iwinbyrollup]

/signed.

The puzzle loses any sense of what it's supposed to be. To most people, it's a color puzzle that can be solved using a mathematical solution. To me, it's purely mathematical. Even when using the mathematical solution, individuals with normal color vision have the color names available to them to track progress and make sure everything's right. I've watched a friend complete it. She uses the mathematical solution but corrects any mistakes as she goes. I try it, use the mathematical solution, and then when it doesn't clear once I've gotten to the end, turn to her and ask what I did wrong. She then immediately tells me that I got x color wrong and I'll cycle that color until it completes.

So what I don't understand is that some people say they are against the change for thematic reasons relating to what the puzzle is (a color puzzle where you're supposed to make a rainbow, like the title of the quest!), but this doesn't make sense to me. Because for me, the puzzle has never had anything to do with a rainbow. You're supposed to get the colors so that they're in rainbow order? If you insist. All I know is that you're supposed to blank the tiles (which, by the way, is moderately difficult for me to do in the first place as the red is quite dark) hit the leftmost color 1 time, the rightmost 8 times, and increasing numbers as you go from left to right.

This request isn't about removing the relation to the actual quest name or changing what it is, it's about making it so that it actually is what it's supposed to be for people who otherwise can't experience the thematic aspects.

Of note: some people have been talking about adding numbers. I don't know how clearly this has been thought through. If you were to use the numbers assigned to the Reaver puzzle for example, where 1 = blue, 2 = green, 3 = orange, 4 = purple, 5 = red, 6 = yellow, etc., the puzzle would be just as incomprehensible for a color blind individual; instead of needing to get rainbow color orders, you'd need to get a seemingly random sequence of numbers (5 3 6 2 1 4 7! Very straightforward!). If numbers were instead assigned based on position, so that the correct solution was 1 2 3 4 5 6 7...that would be beyond inane. Having the game tell you the color name, like rune wheels do, on the other hand, doesn't ruin the thematic aspects of the puzzle and doesn't really make it any easier for people with normal color vision--it draws attention to the color change, but it's hard to not realize that the color change is important when that's all it does when you step on it.

[biggin]

...snip

Nobody is saying, OMG all work on PrEs or Druids or new content must stop until the supreme issue of the day, the unfriendliness of the Rainbow puzzle to color blind people, is remediated, Now Now Now, because I said so, so Nyah Nyah Poo Poo to everything else in the game that could possibly matter to anyone else. Get a grip, and leave the drama in drama class (or on Khyber) where it belongs.

That is actually what the poster directly before you said.

[Dexol]

What are the odds that there are six color blind people in a group?

Once of my guild mates is, and so are his 5 hirelings, i kid you not , he'd love some hint.

[Ryiah]

alt + tab to get it in front but that's a small price to pay.

PCWorld has a link to a program (really just AutoHotKey with a one-line script) that can force a window to stay on top of other windows. Still forces you to run DDO windowed though.

http://www.pcworld.com/article/21851...r_windows.html