WoW players/raiders with a disability of some sort

[Sky]

I want to talk about the stigma players with a disability have in the raiding scene.

With more than 11 million players, it makes sense that more than a few of those players have a disability of some sort, whether quadraplegic, paraplegic, amputee, deaf, color-blind, or other disabilities.

I have unfortunately noticed a general assumption among players of the game that players with a disability cannot play well at all. Players with a disability are immediately thought of as a liability or needed to be baby-sat.

What is the reason behind that logic? Players with a disability are not necessarily fail, or need to be babysat, or are defined by their disability.

A person with one-arm can still play better than a player with two-arms by compensating well enough for the missing limb.

A paraplegic is not effected by the lost of ability to control his legs. A hunter I know in game on Hyjal is a paraplegic, but was afraid of proclaiming it openly because he had been ostracized and thought of a liability.

I myself am deaf, and have really had to through many assumptions of what my lack of hearing entails. Guilds have assumed that being unable to hear vent or boss mod cues would mean I would suck at switching targets, die in fires, or be slow to execute things well.

I have been picked from several pugs that asked players to be on vent because when I explained that I could not hear vent because I was deaf, but I have done the content before.

Players with a hearing disability may be unable to hear on vent, but that does not mean they can't react during the fight well. Players should already know what to do during boss fights, and players can simply type to a player with a hearing disability.

Amputees or quadraplegics can simply be given assignments that involve little movement, or be given the easiest assignments for boss fights.

All of this is unfair to players with disabilities, and I believe players should be considered by their overall package, not just by their disability. They may just surprise you.

[Illidra]

ive played with a fair few people wit disabilities over the course of my playtime.

i was once in a pug that was being lead by someone who had a deaf irl friend in the raid, he refused to say who it was to protect them but mentioned hwo he had simply set up macros that would whisper his friend when he had to do something and tbh, there was no way to tell who it was because he was playing so well that even sherlock holmes wouldnt figure it out.

i also played with someone who broke their hand, in just over a week they managed to re teach themsef to play with just 1 hand and a few macros.
he even managed to get an increase in dps once his hand was healed because he could play with either hand and pay mroe attention to movement etc.

i think that anyone who would discriminate for a disability is just worried that theyll be outperformed and due to their smaller brain, feel innadequate.

disabilitys have almost 0 effect on playing alot of games.

the inability to use vent can be a hindrance, but its not somethign that cant be worked around.
sure a paraplegic may take longer bathroom breaks if their computer is a distance from the toilet but whats an extra couple of minutes?

[Maèl]

The problem is you need the raid to adjust to it.
Sadly, that isn't a given.

I have at least 2 people with disabilities(one with a nasty disability so he gets 0 tactile feedback from his hands) and I made it work.

There are a couple highly successful raids out there that don't play with Vent. Just don't expect a PUG to do that.

I'm afraid the general populace of WoW is very immature and socially inept. The worst offenders being 20 something males with a severe case of overinflated ego and Dunning-Kruger. So if you don't want to be singled out you will either need to keep a low profile or find a group of people who just want to make it work.

I know that's something you don't want to hear but you have already encountered that yourself.

A technical solution(speech-to-text) will not work because WoW has a highly specialised vocab and if everybody is yelling in TS it would get confused anyway. Unless you make a speech-to-text plugin directly for Vent. But even then it's a dead end or excessively expensive to implement.

The community approach is the best one. Find 9 people who are willing to live with your disability. Stay clear of a-holes.
You'd be more than welcome in my raid as long as you move out of TEH BAD SPOT.

The stigma is on the ones who don't want to walk the extra mile for a co-raider if not a friend.

[Sky]

I'm actually in a 11/12 Heroic ICC25 guild, with the ICC25 Frostwyrm.

The post was intended for people that are ordinarily intelligent, critical-thinking individuals that make unwarranted instant judgements about players with disabilities, due to either inexperience with people with disabilities or incorrect assumptions.

[KnThrak]

We have a Hunter who can't be on voicecomm, and it works for us with a mix of good bossmods and good pre-explanations. It's all about assigning roles well. Sure, changing roles midcombat is tricky, but it can be avoided.

[Martie]

There's always going to be idiots out there who say you can't play because of <insert idiotic reason>.
Me, I don't care about peoples disabilities. If they play well and behave well, they are welcome in my raids. If they wipe us and are rude dipholes, they aren't.

On the other hand, the moment someone starts to make excuses for themselves because they have a "disability" (AKA treat me special because I'm deaf/blind/retarded/black/only have blue gear/are a woman/are a man/doesn't have parents/has parents that hate him/has to poop/whatever), I'd kick them if it were up to me.

All in all, it's kinda like gearscore. Stupid people make judgements based on factors other then "being a good player." Smart people know that these things don't matter.

[Maèl]

I'm actually in a 11/12 Heroic ICC25 guild, with the ICC25 Frostwyrm.

The post was intended for people that are ordinarily intelligent, critical-thinking individuals that make unwarranted instant judgements about players with disabilities, due to either inexperience with people with disabilities or incorrect assumptions.

You are preaching to the choir here.
I bet you 10€ that many of those who read and replied to this thread have already thought of how to deal with this. Or already have dealt with it.

[orcstar]

I just think WoW is an excellent game for people with disabilities because people can only see your avatar. It doesn't even need mentioning, just judge on performance and take the best.

Apart from being hearing impaired I don't see a reason to even mentioning a problem.

[CoolNitro]

I have played with people with disabilities in a few games and most of the time they end up being just as good or better then those without any medical issue, at the moment there is an officer in my guild that is paralyzed from the neck down yet you would never notice it when he plays not only is his dps one of the best but contrary to what most would think he has no issues on movement fights, I have no idea how he does it but he has never hampered the guilds progression.

Now that player never told us he was paralyzed until after we promoted him to officer so before that we had no idea and we never had to change tactics to suit him and still don't he is a very capable player but if he did tell us about it upon joining the guild it most definitely would have affected how we did raids, he would have had us constantly had us looking down on him thinking he can't possibly react quick enough to this situation so lets make it easier for him, this is something those without any disability nearly always do in that situation it's wrong to think that way but that is how it is for the majority of people in the world let alone just those in game.

Now with that said he had no problems being on vent and talking/hearing but with voice comms being an important part of today's raiding not being able to join a voice chat is enough to be removed from a raid so I can understand how hard to must be for a deaf person to find a spot plus the fact that you can hardly hide it for very long since you will most likely need to tell people so they don't just automatically kick you for not joining vent and therein lays the problem, since the officers will now know you have a disability they will be inclined to baby sit you just because as I said before most people think they need to.

I know this may sound harsh but what disabled people need to do is show they are capable of keeping up with a normal raid without the raid being changed dramatically to suit them, for a deaf person tell the officers to type in chat any tactic changes but other then that you can think on your feet and you shouldn't need any further help.

To quote the op

Amputees or quadraplegics can simply be given assignments that involve little movement, or be given the easiest assignments for boss fights.

This is the wrong way to look at it they should be given the chance to do it normally and if they believe they can't do it they should be the ones to suggest changing something or else you are going to end up with constant babying and people thinking you can't do anything without making it easy for you.

That said if they are the ones to suggest a change work with them to find a solution that works best for them and the raid at the end of the day if you take 1 person out of a raid and tell them to stand in a corner and just shoot the boss it's going to put pressure on the other members to pull that persons weight.

[Sky]

Hmm, you're most likely right that my suggestion regarding amputees and quadraplegics was wrong.

You're right that they should be given the chance to do everything normally and then only change the raid if they or the raid leader believe it's necessary.

The officers don't really type in raid chat to me for any tactics changes, except for Blood Queen Lana'thel about who I should bite.

Well, the raid lead in my guild does say "STOP DPS" in chat but it's fairly easy to know when others aren't DPSing so it's usually redundant.

I don't believe, well I hope, that the raid group I participate in isn't changed to accommodate me not being able to hear in vent.

[Spiritus]

I myself am deaf, and have really had to through many assumptions of what my lack of hearing entails. Guilds have assumed that being unable to hear vent or boss mod cues would mean I would suck at switching targets, die in fires, or be slow to execute things well.

Oh, Teddy, we all know you don't die in fires b/c your deaf. You die in fires b/c your a bad! =P

[Sky]

The secret's out, /cry

[Monk]

Well I know a couple people who play wow and are colour blind, so seeing things like fires or other stuff on the ground can be tough, but from my understanding of speaking to them, the way they have everything set up it makes their life a little easier through a mod. Still isn't easy for them as the mod doesn't fix everything. Though if they didn't tell you about this, you really wouldn't know it, they're better then half the people out there and can keep up and do their jobs in raids.

It's sad that there are people out there they will automatically discredit and assume that someone can't do what is needed, just because of a disability.

[Chamenas]

One problem with people who are deaf is not with the actual people, but the jerks who would abuse such a state and use it as an excuse. The playerbase in WoW is filled with so many questionable people that most raid leaders need to be slightly critical and cynical when people say they can't do something. Is the guy who says he can't hop in vent REALLY doing it because he's deaf or because he's just too lazy to be prepared?

I try to give people the benefit of the doubt, and if someone whispered me that they were deaf I'd roll with it. I'd probably whisper them and ask if they needed me to do anything in raid chat for them, but I otherwise wouldn't assume they needed anything. If they ended up starting to fail, I'd probably ask again if there's anything I can do to help them via raid chat. If all of that failed, then they become a liability, just like anyone else.

It's tough. Some people are jerks. Some people just want to help. Either way you can often get the wrong impression of the latter because of the former. As was mentioned earlier: You're likely preaching to the choir. The majority of the posting community on Tankspot is more or less solid and likely isn't as problematic about this as the actual WoW playing community.

[Berzerker]

while it's not fair for a player to assume someone with a disability can't do their job, it's also not entirely fair to expect a group to make great effort to carry that player due to their disability either. I'm all for giving anyone a chance, and if they can work around their disability, more power to them. If they are an impact on the raid, I'm the type that will usually put in some effort to help, but I can't hardly fault progression guilds from booting them rather than accommodating to them -- they'd do the same for anyone that can't do the job, disability or no.

As far as booting people because they can't run/use TS/Vent, I'd class those people in the same group as people requiring 5k GS to do naxx runs. They're relying on a largely unrelated metric purely because they don't want to put in any more effort than they have to in order to sort out the chaff, and as such end up culling plenty of potential valuables as a result. The guys in the Undergeared project demonstrate quite well how people who know the fight don't need someone screaming in their ear to do it right (while my guild and I frequently demonstrate how screaming in our ear still doesn't mean we do it right