Guild Wars 2

Hi guys, I hope you have some advice on this.

My younger cousin and his friends are hearing impaired, and they have been playing MMOs for a while. Increasingly though, the trend of many MMOs are requiring guild members to participate in Vent/ Teamspeak, and of course this is a problem for them.

I fully understand when running raids or events, the use of Vent / TS is pivotal, and without it maybe most runs cannot be completed. I don’t dispute that. But I have seen and heard in more than 2 guilds now, 1 of them in another MMO, where I heard the leader and officer bad-mouthing people who are not in Vent/TS.

I am not lying when i heard on Vent, that they said “All these people can’t even bother to download Vent, means they’re not serious, and I am not going to respond to their questions in chat. They shouldn’t even have access to guild bank”. In fact, they promised never to type in guild chat anymore.

Also I saw one person who typed a question in guild chat, and no one answered, even though all the officers were on Vent,and I heard them talking, and I was the one who answered.

Although not as severe in GW2, but this trend is becoming very common, and I just feel bad for my cousin and his friends. They like to play MMOs because when they’re in-game, they can use chat which should be reliable, and for one part of social their life they can be on equal footing with everyone else.

Anyway I was wondering if anyone has experienced this, and whether they have any suggestions? I know we cannot change those guilds’ positions, but maybe we can do something from our end to accommodate this trend. I just hope guild leaders realize this, and sure we may be minority (i’m speaking on my cousin’s behalf), but it s never the intention that we are not serious enough members that we don’t speak in Vent.

I played few MMOs and never was I in situation where I felt forced to go in vent. Easy fix would to just not group with those people but if he does want to play with them he can just say he is deaf, most people should accept that reason.

Just being honest about the situation should be sufficient, anyone who can’t accept and work around that is a massive kitten to begin with and doesn’tdeserve his guild membership.

I can’t think of many situations where vent is essential. The handy thing about vent is you can bark orders to people on the fly, but forward preperation by typing out what’s about to happen beforehand works just as well it just requires a little more patience to explain things

Regizer.1763:

I played few MMOs and never was I in situation where I felt forced to go in vent. Easy fix would to just not group with those people but if he does want to play with them he can just say he is deaf, most people should accept that reason.

Well, my cousin has never participated in raids anyway, because he fully understands he cannot contribute without using Vent. But the problem now is just simply being and existing in a guild that has required him to get on Vent. He just wanted to be a part of the community that are, from what I have seen (which may not be true across the board), increasingly shutting him out.

Hycinthus.6483:

Regizer.1763:

I played few MMOs and never was I in situation where I felt forced to go in vent. Easy fix would to just not group with those people but if he does want to play with them he can just say he is deaf, most people should accept that reason.

Well, my cousin has never participated in raids anyway, because he fully understands he cannot contribute without using Vent. But the problem now is just simply being and existing in a guild that has required him to get on Vent. He just wanted to be a part of the community that are, from what I have seen (which may not be true across the board), increasingly shutting him out.

Did he ever mention he was deaf to the guild is my question though

A good raid leader should still be able to work around it too. Such as having a written cue (such as calling a number or letter very quickly in chat signalling to execute a strategy they discussed in advance. Or maybe a couple of macro binds), and/or putting them on duties in the instance that don’t require sudden changes in strategy.

Hycinthus.6483:

Regizer.1763:

I played few MMOs and never was I in situation where I felt forced to go in vent. Easy fix would to just not group with those people but if he does want to play with them he can just say he is deaf, most people should accept that reason.

Well, my cousin has never participated in raids anyway, because he fully understands he cannot contribute without using Vent. But the problem now is just simply being and existing in a guild that has required him to get on Vent. He just wanted to be a part of the community that are, from what I have seen (which may not be true across the board), increasingly shutting him out.

hogwash. he can contribute without vent, we did it forever in eq. He just needs to find a guild that will work with him. You run a dungeon a few times, and you don’t need vent anyway.

We’ve been using TS/Vent/Mumble/Skype/<Insert FOTM VOIP> for years now and they’ve been requirements for many guilds for the past decade or so. If you have a condition that makes it where you cannot use such programs, then you need to find a guild that is willing to work with you. In FFXI and WoW I had guildmates who were deaf and we were able to work with them just fine. However, I’d wager the vast majority of guilds aren’t going to be willing to put in the extra legwork. Just help them on the guild recruitment pages in finding a guild willing to work with them or create your own.

I just think it’s up to the guild leaders. I won’t join a guild that insists on it, I don’t like having hurdles placed in front of me as a barrier to entry before I’ve even proved my ability, I get quite enough of that in RL. Instead I’ll join a guild that’s a little more flexible and relaxed about such things. It’s only a game for goodness sake. But that’s fine, a guild has a right to want to create the community it wants.

But if it’s a decent guild run by open minded people it won’t bar a deaf person anyway, they’ll work around it, because contrary to popular belief, one is more than capable of using a combination of visual cues, some basic text instructions and good old fashioned common sense and experience to complete ANY dungeon currently known to mankind. This isn’t a NASA moon landing people, this is a relatively simplistic game of whack-a-mole with some added green stuff to not stand in.

No guild that flatly refuses to is worthy of being represented by your buddy anyway, and that’s a fact.

I’m very sorry to hear that but honestly, being handicapped means you’re handicapped. This means certain things are either far more difficult or simply impossible. Maybe your brother could ask a blind person how he feels about never even playing a video game? Maybe ask a paraplegic what he thinks of GW2?

I don’t want to sound rude, but in this case there’s not much you can do. TS in WvW and dungeons is virtually required for serious play. He does have the option of starting a guild for deaf players (an option which blind players don’t have) and it might be pretty successful.

We all have our fair share of trouble in life, and I’ve personally learned to suck it up and either go for it best I can or completely ignore the impossible. What you can’t do is blame others for wanting a talkative guild and because of that require TS.

On the other hand, Nihilum had a deaf player as main tank for a while. Hard work really can overcome everything. Chin up and take responsibility.

There are MANY guilds that don’t require vent in every game out there. Why not just leave the 1337ist ones and join the ones that aren’t? I’ve never used vent in my guild, we all use guild chat AND vent, it’s optional.

Maybe he should avoid those “hardcore” guilds filled with people who just take the game way too seriously…
But not every guild require it, for instance my guild, we have a vent room but no one ever uses it xD but in the end I’m sure he could find one that suits his playstyle and doesn’t have extreme “policies” like ignoring all who isn’t on vent or whatever…

In my view, there is a similar problem when players that speak different languages join together in a party, in this case it not just that TS or Vent are useless, chat is also almost useless (besides a few words in English may be). This is why I would like there were much better means of non-verbal communication, and that there were more non-verbal information. Guild Wars 1 was a better game in this sense than it is Guild Wars 2, but I think that it can be done a lot to implement it. Still more, having means to communicate non-verbally and having more non-verbal information might render TS or Vent almost useless. So, yes, in my view, how much it is needed TS or Vent or the Chat in a game is a question of design and of awareness of non-verbal communication by the designers.

I’d say they could join my guild since the wife and I don’t use the VOIP systems because our immediate surroundings are more important than a game. Especially when you have children.

Only problem is that I’m the only dungeon runner in our guild. The wife has seen how players get treated in a dungeon and refuses to do them and the other two members have connection issues. One is because of construction in her area.

Too bad the Voice Recognition/TTS software out there doesn’t work with these games. Would at least help the VOIPers talk to the hearing impaired without hurting their precious finger tips by typing.

My suggestion is that people do a lot of research on the guild they are joining, and make sure the leaders are okay with having members who may not be able to use VOIP. At the end of the day, it’s your own responsible to find a group that suits your play style or special needs.

There are a lot of guilds out there that don’t require it, and dungeons and other difficult content CAN be completed with text chat alone. I’ve ran 30-50 man raids in other games without any voice communication whatsoever. A lot of people have simply forgotten how to do that nowadays.

marnick.4305:

I’m very sorry to hear that but honestly, being handicapped means you’re handicapped. This means certain things are either far more difficult or simply impossible. Maybe your brother could ask a blind person how he feels about never even playing a video game? Maybe ask a paraplegic what he thinks of GW2?

I don’t want to sound rude, but in this case there’s not much you can do. TS in WvW and dungeons is virtually required for serious play. He does have the option of starting a guild for deaf players (an option which blind players don’t have) and it might be pretty successful.

We all have our fair share of trouble in life, and I’ve personally learned to suck it up and either go for it best I can or completely ignore the impossible. What you can’t do is blame others for wanting a talkative guild and because of that require TS.

On the other hand, Nihilum had a deaf player as main tank for a while. Hard work really can overcome everything. Chin up and take responsibility.

LOL You said the exact same thing on the colorblindness thread! Do you have something against people with disabilities?

marnick.4305:

I’m very sorry to hear that but honestly, being handicapped means you’re handicapped. This means certain things are either far more difficult or simply impossible. Maybe your brother could ask a blind person how he feels about never even playing a video game? Maybe ask a paraplegic what he thinks of GW2?

I don’t want to sound rude, but in this case there’s not much you can do. TS in WvW and dungeons is virtually required for serious play. He does have the option of starting a guild for deaf players (an option which blind players don’t have) and it might be pretty successful.

We all have our fair share of trouble in life, and I’ve personally learned to suck it up and either go for it best I can or completely ignore the impossible. What you can’t do is blame others for wanting a talkative guild and because of that require TS.

On the other hand, Nihilum had a deaf player as main tank for a while. Hard work really can overcome everything. Chin up and take responsibility.

The first and last thing I said in my original post is that they are willing to accommodate this, and there is no expectation from them or me for guilds to change the way they conduct business. If they want to use vent, it’s totally fine, only that the requirement or expectation for someone to be a serious guild member is to use it, is a bit unrealistic -in my opinion-. All I wanted to do was get some advice, and also raise awareness so that people can be more tolerant. We aren’t begging for anything.

As others said, it’s not only for deaf people, but also for people who for some reason cannot speak while playing, perhaps due to children sleeping, roommates, etc.

For your information, they have been sucking it up in real life also in game. There is nothing in my post indicating they are not sucking it up. Actually, they’re sucking it up in their situation so much I had to be the one who speaks up here, because they already know they’re handicapped, and most others are not, and they won’t get any support from anyone.

I generally don’t use Ventrilo or the likes in games simply because I prefer to listen to music and I don’t like talking in my room, that makes some awkward situations in the family.

I can see why people prefer it. In-game, it can be a total life saver when you don’t have to use your hands to type stuff in the chat. Out-of-game it is also convenient for the same reason: You can be doing something else and still participate in the talks.

But if you ask me, that’s where it ends. It’s a convenience tool. Not a necessity. There is no such thing as a guild that cannot work without a voice chat, there are only guilds which refuse to do it.

The thing is, guilds are basically heaps of concentrated efficiency. Unless you’re an asset, you’re basically thin air. In this case, the disability has to be outweighed by what you bring to the guild. An otherwise excellent player is worth keeping and a guild that does not see this is isn’t worth much. The thing is, guilds are massive in this game. So most people in the guild are perfectly replaceable.

And let’s look at the game for a bit. There is nothing in the game that requires sounds. So the only reason someone with a hearing disability would be any less of an asset has to come from the outside. And that’s when you start seeing it: it’s the people. The actual leadership skills that they have aren’t that good, so when they’re put into a setting that is outside of the norm, they break down. They can’t do it, so they ignore it and bring the situation back under control by fixing the people issue by, you guessed it, replacing the person that “caused” the problem.

Find or start a guild that isn’t focused on voice chat. There is no way you are going to change people’s minds that are acting that way. Logic and reason will not convince them. People who aren’t that way, you don’t have to convince. The best thing to do is move along to a different guild.

Join a guild that does not do that.

Guild are communities , that means there are many kinds of guild.

Mine got around 500 players (the numbers vary while we deal with inactive and so on) , officers are the ones that usually TS the most , otherwise is usually people that want to do dungeons and so on, and even then many do not join for that.

Simple find a guild that suits you play style.

I would recomend he finds a guild that is accepting of the restrictions imposed by his disability.

Hopefully in the future Vent will come out with a Voice to Text feature to allow him to participate a bit more.

As a workaround, you could try setting up a second system and routing Vent’s output to that systems input and running existing Voice to Text software such as Dragon. Not sure if the sound quality is good enough that way, and it won’t work with people talking over each other, but it might help some.

In the mean time, he is welcome to apply to Kindred Spirits http://www.ksguild.org

We are a multi-game community. We do not discriminate against those with disabilities. We may ask people to at least listen to vent, but we don’t require it, especialy if it isn’t possible.

Oh, we are on the Tarnished Coast server, but are not an RP guild (RPing is fine, but we don’t require it at any level.)

I have profound hearing loss and I am using hearing aids. Even tough with aids my speech recognition is low as %50-%60 percent, and which makes oral communication very hard for me. This hasn’t been problem for me. I have played WoW, Rift and now playing GW2. In vanilla WoW I have been in serious raiding guild and I was one of their tanks. And I have been promoted to main tank in time. I had tanked neferian itself and was progressing AQ. After our guild disbanded my friends and I have departed and formed our guild for TBC. I was their raid leader It was solid and hadn’t single problem. but due to loose recruitement policies and drama war between officers I have left gaming. Now I applied to IRON and I wrote about my situation. They didn’t even bothered (IRON is Serious WvW Guild and requires TS) and welcomed me. I do my best effort to understand what is going around and I do my contribituon when it is needed. I am enjoying my game. I don’t think this is a real problem itself.

I hope they can find a better guild. Do they have any interest in RP? Our guild has Mumble but specifically states that guild chat is preferred over Mumble. We use Mumble for dungeon runs because it really does help in time-sensitive communication situations, but sometimes we have someone that can’t use it for some reason such as a bad internet connection or a low-end computer and we do just fine.

If your cousin and his friends want RP, they might find a similar situation. RP guilds tend to be more interested in how decent and mature the person is as opposed to how strong a player they are vs. game content. Check out guildwars2roleplayers.com for a large site (at least 3K members, I think) dedicated to the game’s lore and to stories to tell in Tyria, along with RP guild listings.

I totaly agree with this, besides, i like the soundtrack of the game, and the feeling you get when playing it, vent totallys ruins game experience for me.

Fractals seem to require a vent of somekind even tho the game itself doesn’t in most cases. If they are the type of player who likes the harder content, it’s sad that this game indirectly requires that of people in order to be successful.

Kinda another reason so many of us want a direct return to the manifesto instead of their recent required dungeon runs for progression.

Vent or TS is NEEDED for good WvW, there is NO time for a commander to write out orders, you can still just follow the zerg but just accept that some wont like running dungeons with people not on TS, or that some guilds might not accept you. but there are loads of guilds that dont use TS or are more casual. find those instead.

NoVaFLuXx.1582:

LOL You said the exact same thing on the colorblindness thread! Do you have something against people with disabilities?

The colorblind was a mispost, I editted that (I think)

If not I apologize for any misunderstanding. I have a disability myself, my girlfriend has one and we fight every day to overcome it. I do not need pity nor will I give any.