Guild Wars 2

The list of Software/Hardware and my thoughts——

Voice Activated Commands – http://www.dwvac.com/

This Software has soooo many awesome features. You bind phrases to individual keystrokes, macros of even modified keystrokes. You can use a phrase like “Fire” and bind it to use “F1” to switch to the fire element on your Elementalist.
It also allows you to activate a key ‘press’. What I mean by this is you can set up the software so when you say a phrase like “Shift on” and it will hold LShift until you say “Shift off”
The cons to this software is that it is buggy at times. The voice recognition is fairly basic and will make mistakes but for a price tag of only $18. It is worth trying out.

Razer Naga – http://www.razerzone.com/gaming-mice/razer-naga/

Let’s face it… We (if you only have one hand) need to utilize a mouse with lots of buttons. If we must use a mouse (and most games require them – GW2 is no exception) we need to have as many button accessible to our limited fingers. This is the mouse I prefer. Wireless, accurate, and glowy… with lots of buttons.
I opted for the Naga epic because of the custom coloring but the base Naga is awesome. They have released new Nagas with 8 buttons on the side if 12 is too much… but I barely have any problems with the 12 as far as mis-clicking.
For those who lost their right hand Razer has announced a left handed version but have been incredibly slow at releasing it. Keep pestering them. Send them emails, post on their forums and facebook. Tweet at them.

Scythe USB Foot Switches — http://www.scythe-usa.com/product/input/008/usbfootswitch_detail.html

I love them. The software took a while to figure out until I realized how simple it was. Drop down menu to select number of pedals. Then click on the box and type your keystroke. I can’t remember if the software supports Macros but it can work as a shift, ctrl or alt modifier or will utilize a modified keystroke. Once your customization is saved it will work in any computer without any software or drivers since it relies on the basic HID compliant drivers used by most USB mice and keyboards.
Them seem to be built a little more solid than the next set but have little customization as far as to the hardware itself. You can see the little wires exposed which worries me that the right object could fall in and cut them.

Fragpedal Quad option – http://www.gamingmouse.com/gaming/fragpedal/quad/

These are beauties. When I first opened them up I was amazed at how small they were, which is great for LAN parties as they fit in your laptop bag/backpack no problem. The software is more user friendly giving you the options of macros as well as modified key strokes. These, too, are also plug and play into any other system once they are set up.
These are customizable physically. With very simple modifications you can move the two pedals around on a single platform to make them closer or farther apart or add a third pedal to one. The sub-connection box only supports 2 usb plugs (I think) so it’s not a perfect set up to have 3 on one platform. Finally you can adjst how much effort it takes to click the button. They included these tiny metal rods and it took me a while before I realized you can lift up the pedal slightly and put them into grooves underneath the pedal to increase the height of the pedal off the switch.

My final recommendation is use a Joystick for movement. A simple jimmy-rig can have a joystick stationary enough to use it as your WASD movements. Software like AutoHotKey or Pinnacle Game Profiler

The second addition to my computer gaming arsenal was a set of Scythe foot pedals. These are the 3-switch style and were a gift from my wife’s cousins.They seemed really simple to set up but it took me WAY too long to figure out the software. I was looking for popups or drop down menus to select keystrokes but instead you just had to click in the box and then type the key stroke it was way to easy. It works with shift, ctrl, and alt modifiers and can also work as shift, ctrl or alt. You also need to select how many pedals the device has and it gives you that many boxes. Hit the save and those pedals can plug into any computer and work without set up. (They are a simple HID device much like a usb keyboard so all plug n play) I bound #1 Weapon ability (auto attack), Dodge, and Use/Activate/Loot to these 3 buttons. I don’t like mouse clicking when I use the mouse for all of my movement so right clicking on everything had to go. Dodging was also a major problem so until I got these pedals I didn’t play much.

I knew I was going to rely on my feet more for gaming so I ordered a set of quad fragpedals. I liked the 2 sets of 2 style and with the cables I could position one set on either side of my first 3 pedals. I tried many different combinations of keystrokes take over abilities that I didn’t have bound before and was clicking but I was missing a good set of modifier keys so the left 2 became Lshift and Lctrl. The right side didn’t fare too well. I just found my right foot being glued to the dodge button in combat and the “use” button after combat. I put strafing on the right side but it is going to take me more practice to get good at.

That is my story thus far. I am still waiting for my prosthetic arm which I will be building an attachment for a Joystick. There is software that can convert axis movements to key strokes and I will finally be able to use my left hand (arm? lol) for movement again. This will allow strafing and back pedaling again.

You either clicked on this out of curiosity or because you suffer the same limitation as me. My left arm was amputated above the elbow last December because of an accident at work. I am fortunate, as I am right handed but this has really brought a new level of challenge to my favorite hobby, gaming. I am not writing this because I feel I am important, to conjure sympathy or because my story is special in anyway, but because some people may find hope and the advice they need to overcome a similar predicament (or if you want to free up a hand for those chips and beer without gumming up your keyboard). In this topic I am going to explain my journey first before dropping software and hardware in a list because I want to encourage readers as much as inform them.

In the hospital I didn’t want to touch Guild Wars 2. I knew how difficult it would be without the use of the Keyboard and I was not about to create negative feelings of defeat towards GW2, a game I had come to really enjoy. Instead I played Minecraft. I have a Razer Naga Epic that I carried over from my years Spent ($15/mo please…) in World of Warcraft. That game had so many spells I needed the extra 12 buttons to maintain utility without swapping skills when switching between questing, PvP, and PvE dungeons/raids. For Minecraft I just remapped my run forward key to Keypad 5 and the jump button to Keypad 8, which is below or closer to me. I would hold run and be able to jump by shifting my thumb slightly. This slow-paced game made it easy to get used to the new play style.

When I was released home I slowly got back into GW2. I would only really log on to test different changes until I felt comfortable enough to play successfully, at least in my mind what was successful. I am fairly competitive when it comes to gaming so I was not going to return to GW2 as a noob. The first thing I tried after rebinding all necessary moves was Voice Activated Commands. This software allows you to use a phrase or several phrases to operate a keystroke, macro, or a shift, ctrl, or alt combo. I could bind the phrase “Heal” to press “q” and set “q” in game to activate my heal spell. So there I was… a guy sitting at his computer speaking out “Heal” “Judgement!” “Elite Skill” The downside of this software is that voice recognition software is not incredible accurate and it would sometimes require the phrase to be repeated. I had to bind a phrase to put the software to sleep and wake it up because I would be trying to talk to friends and my elite skill would keep going off. But even this was not a complete fix. During Skype conversations I would have to constantly say “stop voice” to put it to sleep because I could hear the software become active. The other awesome part is friends could shout across the room “heal” and blow my heal spell… All that aside, if you are not talking to people or have people in the same room it is actually very powerful software. The biggest downside of this software is the delay between the phrase recognition and the keystroke. It is not long… but when it comes to fast action.. it’s not fast enough.