Guild Wars 2

Hi everyone, I suffer from a condition called Topographagnosia! For those unfamiliar with the agnosia spectrum (Prosopagnosia, etc) it simply means that I have extreme difficulties remembering in a specific area of the brain; in my case it’s the visual spatial spectrum.

Someone with Prosopagnosia for example would not be able to recognize faces, even family! The only way for someone with prosopagnosia to recognize anyone is through other means such as smell, complexion and clothes.

Agnosia is not bound to intelligence and applies to different areas in the brain, which explains why I’m not “slow” and able to read and write.

In my case, I cannot recognize anything geographic at all. This means I get lost in parking lots, groceries stores and especially hospitals. It is impossible for me to remember anything, judge distances or make a cognitive map of anything related to topography.

I am a huge fan of the original series of Guild Wars, and when Guild Wars 2 was announced it seemed to focus on exploring. I was very afraid that my favorite games sequel was going to become impossible for me to play!

I am here to say that this game is well aware of people with this condition and even other forms (such as DTD and “no sense of direction”) I can actually do endgame content and even explore, without getting lost as much.

I want to thank the developers for including several visual aids for people like me!

While it may not seem its a necessary feature, the developers have decided to implement several very helpful visual aids such as:

Sparkling lines in certain dungeons.
Dotted line trail in map
Minimap is integrated with the real map, seamlessly… in other games the mini map was either too simple, or didn’t match with the real map.
Personal Story waypoints acknowledging elevation and guiding you through it.
All hubs are connected via roads, “quest” npcs are instead highlighted on the map.
Red circles on area effects

While other games have tried its best to make it disability friendly (notable example is world of warcraft) I have yet to see a game, other than guild wars to acknowledge memory disabilities.

Thank you so much for your exceptional work and help, these features have helped me out so much. I am able to participate in tournaments and endgame PVE.

Please keep up the good work!

This is super rad :]

Well I doubt it was intended, but it’s awesome that it worked out that way for you

That’s fantastic buddy, good for you!

You are awesome

Glad to hear it!

Now that I think about it, A-net did do a good job with the directional aids. I personally enjoy the scouts that direct you to each quest.

I’m sorry to hear about that disability, I’m not sure I could imagine what that would be like, what about maps, can you look at a map and see what place to go to but then can’t remember what you saw on the map?

I hope you don’t mind me asking.

Yay! a happy GW2 gamer. I am happy that you are able to enjoy this game, and the hobby of gaming in general. I get lost bad enough as it is (horrible sense of direction), I couldn’t imagine it being any worse. So, good on you.

That’s absolutely wonderful!
Keep on enjoying GW2! =)

My mother suffers from facial blindness (has had it all my life), so I kind of understand your pains with your disability.

That said, I am glad you feel you have find a game that you can enjoy and have fun in; its always a good feeling to not have to forfeit our favorite activities because of it. I personally have MS and while I am young, I still have very bad flare ups that makes gaming almost impossible at times, but games like this actually help me combat my disability.

trapline.8541:

I’m sorry to hear about that disability, I’m not sure I could imagine what that would be like, what about maps, can you look at a map and see what place to go to but then can’t remember what you saw on the map?

I hope you don’t mind me asking.

Yes.

I can look a map and try to memorize it, but as soon as I close it I immediately lose all memory associated with that map. Which means world maps in games are useless to me, and I have to rely on cardinal directions. When I open my map in the game, I gain my sense of location based on the direction I went (like east).

If the game does not include a built in Dotted line trail, I have no sense of location period.

This condition also makes it impossible for me to drive without assistance because I am unable to remember stop signs. I have to use specialized gps that assists me with that by configuring locations of stop signs. Someone else has to configure those, because I cannot do that by myself. It is very unsafe for me to drive without help!

While it is true that arenanet probably didn’t intend the feature to help my certain disability, it is true that they implemented visual aids to help people who have a less severe form of my condition.

I’m glad to hear you enjoy the game and Anet helped you. If you or any other person with disabillity needs help in-game, me and my guild are standing to help everybody. Do not hesitate to contact me in-game if you need any kind of help.

Also, instead of all day whining (including myself), let’s try to make this game, with Anet help, much better place for players with disabillities, so everyone can enjoy the game. I’d also like to hear experience from other disabled players.

Best regards.