Rogue.8235

For as long as I am unable to communicate with other players without, first, coordinating third-party voice chat, I can't do PvE instanced content. People just rush through and I often can't follow quickly enough. I end up getting lost and panicking trying to figure out where the group is. If I tell the group of random players that I'm blind, most think I'm trolling or soemthing. So I just stay quiet on that issue. I stick to PvP because I know what I'm supposed to do and can generally follow the state of the match pretty easily. Open world is just open world. I don't WvW because it's changed a lot since I last played it (when I had vision). TL;DR: No, because the way isntanced PvE content is played by most MMO players makes it extremely impractical for the visually impaired.

> @"Dithnir.4593" said: > Hey Rogue, thanks for the detail :) I'm a producer, I just worry about the team's health and productivity. You say the tech isn't there, you mean it isn't in Maya or isn't in the toolset the Guild Wars character artists use? > From what you're saying it would seem like the IK handles that determine the transformation would have to be different enough between male and female, say human, to make the work to get a suitably similar quality transformation happening unfeasible (e.g clipping issues). Or, the meshes themselves are different enough that the cost is prohibitive. Is that the case with the GW2 characters from what you can tell? Ah then you'll understand why it wouldn't be feasible. The amount of labor hours is cost-prohibitive. You'll also set up a work load that both retroactively and proactively creates technical debt. A way around it is to just state, officially, that these operations will be done on only a few select skins, but now you have the branding issues to deal with. From a production and project management standpoint, the list of cons far exceeds the list of pros. JThe meshes themselves would need to be adjusted. UV and shading networks adjusted for the different deformations of the new mesh. QA would have to test how the meshes work with different rigs and identify quality issues there, which would require more alterations to meshes, hypershaders, and any workarounds becauseit's now taking too long. Meanwhile, while this retroactive project is underway, you devoted large portions of your 3d assets team away from the projects already underway for the future releases. Software isn't smart enough to just do it on its own, it takes a lot of labor hours in every step to make these adjustments. But again, would be cool to have. As for the software they use, it's not just the design software, but the implementation of work-product from the design software into the game engine. This adds complexity as every game engine would be different, requiring its own set of labor hours. I'm only talking about the design side before it even touches the game.

> @"Dithnir.4593" said: > I presume from your believing the costs to be prohibitive you are, like me, a game developer. In which case, we probably don't have a common view of what it takes to apply textures to rigs. I'd be interested to understand what differences, within a race, there are between rigs, as the devs are already constructing very different 'female' rigs for the females in the different races. It feels like it's incrementally more work, for a great deal more player choice. > You don't apply textures to rigs. Rigs are skeleton/joint/IK splines that allow for animation. Rigs are applied to meshes, which means rigs dictate how meshes deform for animations. Animations use IK handles on the rigs to dictate what transformations occur and when. Textures are a component of shading networks, which include many other components to dictate how light would interact with an object. Shading networks are applied to the polygons of a mesh, with UV mapping dictating how the shading network is applied. And all of that is just the basics that anyone can learn. There are far more complex operations involved with creating a 3d object, making it look realistic, making it move, and allowing it to accept input from a user to dictate how it is all done. To create the male outfit for a female rig is far more than just applying textures or creating a mesh. One example is weight painting, which would be different for different body shapes to simulate realistic motion. I regularly use Maya 2018, and what I mentioned in this post is only a small portion of what goes into what you're suggesting. EDIT: But yeah it would be nice if there was a feasible way of doing this. Tech just isn't there for feasible implementation though.