Gaming and life (this is a long read).

I play a game called Destiny, fairly religiously as well. I sherpa a "raid"", a game mode that involves 6 players to play together and with each other to complete levels and puzzles, every Friday.

I ran into a player who joined my post, and it turns out that he is deaf. I'd never want to lose more than I already have, and I couldn't possibly bear to lose my hearing. I am already disabled, so I am not as a competitive player as I used to be, but I couldn't imagine losing my hearing and playing.

So I am going to spend this upcoming week working on visual aids and a written description of how I am going to teach the raid, like a lesson plan. I am going to make maps of the arena, and man, that really breaks my heart that something is hindering his gaming experience. I don't know what kind of assistive devices he utilizes, he never got back to me when I messaged him about creating aids to help him out, it definitely made me think though.

There are so many gamers who are just so oblivious to actual experience of the game, like all the individual moving parts. This is why I find it so difficult to trash talk players online, and why people whom trash talk me just don't get why I do agree that "yeah, I am crap". Lately though, I have been doing these game modes called "Nightfalls", they are three-player team missions with varying difficulty, and I am below the recommended level, and when I search for players through lfg, a lot of players refuse to play with me because of the presupposition that I am garbage, or that I am going to make the mission take too long. I played with these two guys, they were above my light level, one was even above the recommended light level, yet I was the guy who ran around reviving them. Yet I played with another group and one was about my light level, maybe one or two levels higher, and his buddy was a whopping 17 light levels below the recommendation. Needless to say what takes me and a team of players around my light level on average 35 minutes, this took us just over an hour. But I used to be that guy, so desperate to get a team and try a high level nightfall. Yet I was never rude about it, I just tried to hold my own. There are some players though, they don't have that respect for other players, the ones that deal with the bullying, and grind to get their level of playing up.

So I imagine, that if I was deaf, how the heck would I be able to experience this part of the game with these idiot players. I've been in raid groups where the team would tell me wrong information, then call me garbage because I couldn't do enough damage, or I die because I am trying to cover these other guys. Imagine if I was deaf though, or if I didn't learn in a reasonably normal way, or that I couldn't communicate. How difficult would life be as a gamer, how would life be different in their eyes. I couldn't imagine my life without gaming or music, I wouldn't even understand what there was left to do in life. Sure, there are other things I know, but gaming has played such an important part in my life, just as music has, when I got into my car accident, my family brought my PS2 and an Mp3 player to me while I was staying at the rehabilitation facility.

I'd be nothing without gaming, why wouldn't I want to help give someone a chance at having similar experiences? I want you to think how gaming has helped or shaped you lives, I be thankful that you have had experienced what you have through gaming. I came to this forum for Final Fantasy, because most of my family didn't enjoy these types of games.

this is kind of not what you're getting at, but I definitely think asl should be more taught in schools, just like any other second language

accessibility options in games are very important. there's that new ace combat style game that allows one handed controls, which is great. there's color schemes that are good for color blindness, and fonts that are better for dyslexia. and of course subtitles and text guides for the Deaf community. accessibility in games should always be taken into account in game design!

Hope that there's some options in Destiny for you and your friend to make that planning easier between what either of you needs, haven't ever played it but big games nowadays seem to try, which is good.

it's good to perceive the world and even the gaming subset of the world as having different experiences based on disability, cause that'll help to make accommodations and societal changes, like you are thinking about on your post. until it became relevant to my fam personally, I didn't pay as much attention to wheelchair accessibility, but now I'm critical of building design and access options pretty much 24/7.

for me personally, gaming taught me English and a lot of social contexts and interactions wouldn't have experience with otherwise, which is sometimes difficult for me, or was more difficult when I was young. rpgs I think help with experiencing different points of view/life too.

Yeah, it's hard to comprehend just what I'd be missing out on in gaming without my hearing. So many good gaming memories are triggered just hearing a song from a game I used to play. The songs also really helped with the story telling in many great RPGs.

Onto your helping others point, I think people need to stop being so impatient and just chill and enjoy the game. I play pretty casually these days so if I do play an online game I'm likely going to be playing with people better than me. I don't care though. I'm way too busy in life to worry about being better than someone else in a game. If someone is going to trash talk me, they're trashing a busy father of 3 who has little or no time to get good a game, haha.

Onto your main question.
Gaming has been a huge part of my life since I was small. I was an only child with lots of free time so gaming filled a lot of that time. So many great memories of mine are from video games. So many great stories that they've told, great pieces of music that have stuck with me that I never forgot. Heck, in my late teens I ended up meeting my future wife on a Zelda forum. So you could say games played a major role in shaping my life. I've also met others on games and other online gaming communities and formed great friendships that are still going strong.

I am actually really glad that you guys really took the time to read and respond to what I find an alarming issue. Man, I really hope this kid responds, making maps and a a guide geared toward him is a lot of work, and it only works if I know his specific needs.

There are already guides out there, and there are already maps as well. Though they aren't exactly the way I teach the raid.

If people want to do it enough, and it's even remotely possible for them to do it, they'll persevere. If they have that drive, they probably want to get there on their own as much as possible.

It's good of you to want to help out, but respect that they might not want your help and might even find it insulting. Maybe they haven't seen your message, maybe they did and don't want the help. It's clear that you mean well, and I respect that. Doing all that work to help them would be a lot of your time. Check out Brolylegs, and listen to what he has to say starting around 1:40-3:20.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s1MYSgy4QMw

Or check out blindken. A street fighter player that's learned how to recognize every move from every character in the game based on the sound the characters make.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iyI0cu3Rf6Q

If you don't hear something back, you might try a follow up message saying you'd like the guy on your team, and will respect not giving them extra help if that's how they want to play. It's the way a lot of competitive people with some kind of disability think.