Deaf Gamers

[Lost_Child]

Being a Deaf Gamer, trying to play COD 4, I am not having a lot of luck, Fun and enjoy who I'm playing YES, Luck No.
I have been doing some research on deaf/HH gamers, and there are many more than I realized.

So a couple of items deaf gamers are mentioning, I was wondering if anyone here had any experience with them, because they would work for hearing gamers as well.

One is vibrating/bone induction headphones.
www.aftershokz.com/technology/

The other is called a ButtKicker (their name) which vibrates the chair.
www.thebuttkicker.com/gamer2


These items aren't cheap, so would really like to get some firsthand opinions of these or similar.

Thanks Yall

[Lamron]

The bone induction one is interesting, but I suppose it depends on the exact type of hearing loss you have. If its just an eardrum problem, I imagine it would work great. If its an inner-ear or nerve problem, it won't do anything. I'm sure you've already discussed with your doctor all of the hearing assistance devices available.

The ButtKicker might be fun for awhile, until it got annoying. Wouldn't help with playing the game in any way though.

I would be more than willing to develop some mod for the game to help replace important sounds with some visual indicator. I can easily make it so only you could see it. You'd have to give me some sort of idea what would be helpful to you, because I'm not sure where to start.

[Lost_Child]

That was good info Lam.
The Buttkicker , my Wife and Daughter would probably be annoyed by floor vibration, sooner than I would be over it.

The bone induction, I was wondering how much vibration you could feel, and whether you could process enough info to understand whats around you and directions, etc.
Because nerve deafness is my issue, and I wouldn't actually hear the sounds.

As far as you modding something, I don't know what or how much is involved in it.
Therefore, I would not ask, nor expect you to devote that time to a single players needs/wants.

That being said,I have seen a couple things that may be helpful, all or in part.
For example, Red and I were playing, he shot at me a couple times and missed,
He was outside of the range of of proximity/sound detector.
I had no idea bullets were being fired and had hit just above my head, until Red pointed it out, and
I saw the decals on the wall behind me.

A couple things I have found is : ASUS Sonic Radar Overlay !
rog.asus.com/technology/rog-sound-innovations/sonic-radar/

And
...Spurred by exploding doors and a threadbare list of closed caption-enabled games, Reid Kimball sought to create "an example for the industry to follow." Reid formed "games[cc]", a now defunct group dedicated to producing closed caption game mods. Their first project was to mod Doom 3. In addition to closed captioning, the mod featured a visual sound radar, an on-screen display of which direction a particular noise was coming from – think surround sound but with visual cues. The mod was well received, earning a nomination for best Doom 3 mod at the 2006 Independent Games Festival choice awards...

Though this is rather extensive, in as much as describing what each sound is, footsteps, doors clanging, etc.

[RedRock]

Some game I played, can't remember what, maybe COD 1 or StarTrek Voyager? Anyway, it gives flashing red arrows for the direction an attack is coming from, esp. when some damage is happening.

[Lamron]

I could add subtitles, but I'm afraid it would look like this all the time:

'Footsteps'
'Footsteps'
'Footsteps'
'Gunshot'
'Gunshot'
'Gunshot'
'Footsteps'
'Footsteps'
'Footsteps'
'Footsteps'
'Gunshot'
'Gunshot'
'Gunshot'
'Gunshot'
'Gunshot'
'Footsteps'
'Footsteps'
'Footsteps'
'Gunshot'
'Footsteps'
'Gunshot'

I don't think that would be useful at all without any direction or distance (volume). Or I could make the Sound Detector larger and more sensitive. But if I made it sensitive enough to really be useful to you, it would probably start actually giving you MORE info than you should have, and not be fair to players that are making the effort to be quiet.


The ASUS Sonic Radar Overlay seems like the perfect solution to me. It addresses all the possible problems while being extremely useful:

- It uses info from the sound card, NOT the game. This is VERY important! This not only makes it universal, but since it doesn't interact with the game code, it shouldn't be detected as a possible cheat.

- Its a good visual representation of the type of information sound is giving you: 360 degree directionality, and volume (distance).

- It accurately reflects the gameplay of other players. Players using quiet perks like Dead Silence, or using silenced weapons, or walking slowly still get the benefits they deserve. While louder footsteps and gunshots give away their position to you as they should.


I did some Googling about deaf players, and found lots of people with the same complaints, but nothing I saw came as close to a real, practical solution as the ASUS Sonic Radar Overlay did.

Of course, the downside is you have to actually buy that motherboard and build a new computer around it. But the expense and trouble might be worth it if this ends up being a good tool for you that can be used universally with all games. Being able to hear (even virtually) really is key to being able to play first person shooters with any success.

[Lost_Child]

Thanks for looking into it Lamron !

You are correct, just having words with no direction or distance, would be of no use.
I too really liked the ASUS Sonic Radar Overlay.
But buying and building a PC around it,
just doesn't seem feasible, compared to the number of games I play, were I would really need it.

As far as whether these are "cheats" or not, is open to interpretation.
Some Gamers even consider the ASUS overlay as a cheat.

Your average player uses sight and sound to process what is happening.
Using something such as an overlay, I guess could give them yet more info, having three sources.
But it brings a deaf player the ability to "hear", even though it requires adding to, but only including visual process.

So is it, or isn't it? I don't know.

I will adapt, I have fun playing regardless.

Maybe we will just have a NO Sound night sometime