Colorblindness: a response to T-Ray's Massively interview

[blakmarkit]

Tramell (and PS2 dev team), I am strongly in like with you for bringing something I dreamed as doing myself in some form (if Sony or someone else wouldn't) to fruition. Thank you so much!

I just read your interview with Justin Olivetti on Massively. You touched on one of my biggest concerns with the first game, and moving forward into the second...colorblindness accessibility. I am a digital artist, but I'm also red/green colorblind.

I don't mean this accusatorially, but do you understand what being red/green colorblind means? It means that because the color purple is a mix of blue and red, and because red/green colorblindness causes an inability to see low saturations of the color red, blue and purple are functionally indistinguishable. I played the first game with my brother for several years total, first when it came out, then again more recently we dived back in to see how things had changed. We are both red/green colorblind, and because we were completely unable to tell difference between the blue of NC and the purple of VS on maps and in battle, we were forced to remain TR, the only color that was distinguishable from the others.

I imagine that you are too late in the dev cycle to really make such a drastic change as changing the colors of an empire, and I'm sure there would be massive backlash from the community, but I think that if you are moving forward as you are, you need to STRONGLY focus on word labels for factions on maps, differentiated shapes, and possibly make the yellow (an easier color to see for the red/green colorblind) of NC much more prominent in design, labeling and iconography. It's not an insignificant portion of the population that is colorblind. You said in the interview: “...the percentage of colorblind players who engage in MMOs is so small as not to be a huge concern, but for those who are, the shape language and player silhouettes should make up for the difficulty in identifying colors. Plus, with green out of the picture, the most common type of colorblindness (red/green) shouldn't present an issue.”

Statistics say that 7-10% of all males have some form of colorblindness (usually red/green), and I imagine that PS2's player-base skews strongly male. Statistically, 10% of your players might not even be able to tell the difference between two empires. This seems to me a major concern, and something that needs to be taken extremely seriously in a game that relies so heavily on color cues. Do you have any colorblind people testing things? I believe that this is something you should strongly consider.

I don't want to be so presumptuous as to believe that I have any power to change anything, but I am so excited to play this game, and I want it to be excellent.

[Dorest0rm]

Friend of mine is colorblind, sometimes whilst playing MW2 he had to ask us if the harrier on the map was friend or foe.
Its odd that lots of game devs(or even monitor manufacturers) dont think about people who are colorblind.

[SavageB]

Good post, when I was younger and had roomies, one of them were color blind...Had it really bad...Hes room carpet color was like a redish pink....the poor guy thought it was grey..He didint know until I told him years after lol...Not laughing at his color blindness but the situation that he had a pink carpeted room and we never told him.


Hopefully something will be incorporated into PS2 that will make things easier for you.

[kaffis]

Yeah, this is a problem that my brother (who tried playing with me and my NC friends) experienced first hand and made it hard for him to play well. That's why I posed my color-blind question in the Twitter Q&A thread the way I did, highlighting the problem with purple and blue.

Kudos for T-Ray for giving some passing thought to the issue, and rejecting green because of it. However, hopefully, some education like this thread can help them step-back and re-assess whether the things they have in place are enough, or whether there needs to be some either color swap palette options on the client side (that would hopefully be barred from exploitation and not provide unfair advantages to non-color blind players who used them -- matching brightness and saturation levels with the "real" colors, for example) or UI elements to further aid color blind players who aren't TR (and thus given license to shoot everything that looks at all blue to them, lol, NC and VS alike).

Because, as such, that's the only "good" solution, and it bars the color blind players from having their choice of empire or playing with friends who don't happen to be TR.

[CutterJohn]

Considering they will allow you to customize your colors, a widget in the options that overrides the color schemes of the enemy faction would be trivial.

[Gandhi]

Maybe the best solution would be a 'colorblind mode' that can be toggled on and off. With it on you could replace the red/green radar colors with something else, accent the teal and yellow secondary colors on the Vanu and NC and so on. Even just changing the name over the character from red/green to some other mix of colors would be a big help I imagine.

[Mirror]

What do other games do to solve this problem?

Im having a hard time trying to recall if any other games I've played have had colour blind options.

[NewSith]

What do other games do to solve this problem?

Im having a hard time trying to recall if any other games I've played have had colour blind options.

Be the first. Be the best.

[kaffis]

What do other games do to solve this problem?

Im having a hard time trying to recall if any other games I've played have had colour blind options.
Call of Duty: MW games have alternate HUD coloration options for the names that float over characters (I think it's blue and something instead of red and green). Also, the models aren't color-coded for anybody, so the color blindness there doesn't come into play.

I'm with NewSith, though. Just because other people don't go out of their way to be color-blind friendly, doesn't mean PS2 shouldn't. As CutterJohn says, the tech's there easily to allow for color substitutions. Work with some colorblind players in beta to come up with effective palette substitutions for a "colorblind mode" that don't become unfair when used by non-colorblind people, either. If there's no such advantage, I don't think people will be upset that other people might not be seeing their awesome customization correctly (since there's no incentive to use the colorblind mode unless you're colorblind), and the colorblind folks get to play on a level playing field with everybody else without being shunted into the TR to get there.

At a bare minimum, we need some colorblind friendly UI options, that must include (for it to really be colorblind friendly) persistent friend or foe tags at most visible ranges. The Advanced Targetting implant wasn't really good enough in PS1 to substitute for color sight, because its range was limited (especially when discussing vehicles) and it required reticle-over, forcing colorblind people to actively namecheck people to function. And that's not even getting into forcing colorblind people to take Advanced Targetting as one of their implants, whether they would have wanted the functionality it offered others or not.

[morf]

I'm red/green colorblind and I could easily tell the difference between red, blue and green, or red, purple and green. But the problem is like the OP said, the blue vs. Purple is really bad. Its not that we can't see green, its not that we can't see red, its that when you mix a small amount of red or green with another color, our vision filters out a lot of the red or green. So purple loses the red and just looks blue. But if it was straight red only or green only, we could see it because if you filter out some of the green from green, you're still left with green. If you filter out some red from red, it's still red.

Give me an option to make VS green and it would be freaking great. I'm not joking here, I have 2 choices: play TR or grief out.

Edit to add: red and green names above players are fine, the name red/green colorblind is a misnomer, we can see red, we can see green, it just gets camoflauged when you mix it with other colors

[Traak]

Put an icon in front of enemy vehicle/person names, or behind it. Like a diamond. It will become almost unconscious to recognize enemies by the icon at the end of their name for those who have troubles perceiving colors. This option can be toggled, along with a whole set of others, to make the game FAR more friendly for them to use. Another option is an underline, overline, etc.

It ain't rocket science.

[kaffis]

Edit to add: red and green names above players are fine, the name red/green colorblind is a misnomer, we can see red, we can see green, it just gets camoflauged when you mix it with other colors
It all depends on severity. There are some people for whom even pure red or green appears essentially like a greyscale.

[Graywolves]

Fix your colors to make all friendly's lighter and all enemy's darker or visa versa.

[kaffis]

Fix your colors to make all friendly's lighter and all enemy's darker or visa versa.
I don't think this is a good solution, as it changes the contrast between enemies and their environment while using the mode vs. while not using the mode. That's why I said saturation and brightness ought to match the "normal" colors when color-substituting.

[Bravix]

If you're blue colorblind, you can still see the yellow parts of NC armor. The PS2 armors are pretty recognizable. You could put all of the pictures of characters in grayscale and I can tell you which faction they belong to.

[Captain1nsaneo]

Would switching out the Red for blue in the HUD elements fix this? Also wondering if adding an option to turn up the brightness on the teal and gold aspects for VS and NC would take care of it.

A worry: Making a color blind mode that makes it easier to pick out people at night. That would lead to players switching to color blind mode even if they didn't have issues just for another advantage.

One of the best Lasher users in my outfit was color blind.

[Captain B]

With the stark differences between models you'll be able to tell at a difference. If you can't, then they're probably so far off you wouldn't be able to see color to differentiate them anyway. They'll be all black at a distance before you can't distinguish them by armor type anymore.

[duomaxwl]

I'm red/green colorblind. It makes me very paranoid gunning vehicles because from a distance I may shoot friendlies on accident. I also have issues using tactical on the map. If they didn't do something to help colorblind players, I would make do, but it couldn't hurt to try.

Sent from my SCH-I500 using Tapatalk

[Xyntech]

How about if you have color blind mode turned on, a bright easy to see circle appears in front of your allies when you look in their general direction (it could get smaller as they got further away so that you could still see most of their body). Anyone without the circle could be presumed an enemy.

You could play test it to make sure it was no more effective at identifying friend or foe than it is with the option is turned off for non color blind players. If it's harder to tell who is who past a certain range, the circle could match this by starting to fade away past a certain distance. Color blind players would just have to learn not to pop off shots at distant players without checking if they were a friend or enemy first, but if it was properly balanced, non color blind players would have to be equally careful.

With it only being on friendlies, it would give no advantage at spotting an enemy who is in the dark or behind cover. You still have to use your visual acuity to find the hard to spot enemies. After all, accommodating color blindness in a FPS is awesome, accommodating regular blindness in a FPS would be silly :D

[T-Ray]

Statistics say that 7-10% of all males have some form of colorblindness (usually red/green), and I imagine that PS2's player-base skews strongly male. Statistically, 10% of your players might not even be able to tell the difference between two empires. This seems to me a major concern, and something that needs to be taken extremely seriously in a game that relies so heavily on color cues. Do you have any colorblind people testing things? I believe that this is something you should strongly consider.

I don't want to be so presumptuous as to believe that I have any power to change anything, but I am so excited to play this game, and I want it to be excellent.[/QUOTE]

I have a couple of friends that are r/g cb, one that I went to art school with. I know how he dealt with it and it wasn't easy, being an artist in all.

Thank you for this post, I would like for you to respond to mine if you would...

ok, 10% of ALL males are colorblind
How many of that 10% plays video games? lets say 7% of the 10% play video games.

How many of that 7% play first person shooters? lets say 5% of the 7%

How many of that 5% will play PlanetSide2 lets so 3%

I am being generous with these numbers and I assume that a LARGE number of people will LOVE and play PS2. So if 3% is the most generous case...if you ran the company, what would be your orders?

The shape language is a large part of PS2 if all the characters were black and white, you would still be able to pick them out of a line up. Color will not be the only distingusing factor

I'm not trying to be insensitive at all, I just want to hear your thoughts.

[GTGD]

So, if a person has RG they won't be able to discern colors between TR and neutral bases. They can clearly see who is NC and VS though. Likewise, if a person has BY colorblindness, they won't be able to discern the NC's colors from... the NC's other colors.

I don't even see the issue with the names and health bars above characters (if they are returning). Even if they are completely RG colorblind, it's simple to understand that characters with names and outfits above their heads are friendlies and that characters with only health bars (and who are shooting at you) are enemies.

And like T-Ray said, people with colorblindness are such a small percentage of the population. Not all of them see the pairs of color as a greyscale of sorts either, some are partially colorblind and just have a little more difficulty recognizing the colors.

For what may amount to a GENEROUS 25 people out of every 1000, there is no reason to make the game completely accessible to colorblind people. Unless, should every game be made completely accessible to the deaf and people with hearing damage? Subtitles and visual cues should be included in all games, right? And that is a much larger population.

[Traak]

As I said, having a list of options you could toggle to assist in target differentiation by adding an icon beside enemy names, or a line, or something, is not that difficult.

[Xyntech]

If the aesthetics of the empires are skewing a little more towards Team Fortress 2's level of identifiability more than Planetside 1, I suppose it may be enough to make the difference. You've seen more gameplay than we have TRay.

Just keep in mind that even %1 of 20,000 players is 200 players. That isn't a large percentage, but it's a fair number of people who may be extra happy to buy stuff from the cash shop and help support a game that acknowledges their needs.

We all know you guys have a lot of stuff you want to get into the game and also want it launched ASAP, so I can see how you would have to prioritize things and not be able to cater to every eventuality, but with your experience with colorblind artists I'm sure you'll be on the lookout for any easy to implement, but also non game balance altering ways of further accommodating color blind players.

[morf]

Hi T-Ray

You're looking at the math in the wrong light imo. Sure, only a very very small percentage of the population of the entire planet will both play planetside 2 and be colorblind - as you pointed out. However, if 10 percent of males are colorblind, and your playerbase is 90 percent male, that's a full 9 percent of your players. This isn't even accounting for females who also may be colorblind.

Taking this a step further, if your target market is males who play shooter games, 10 percent of these males will be colorblind. So these decisions still affect a full 10 percent of your target market. 10 percent is 10 percent any way you cut it.

But hopefully it will be distinguishable by other means, like you said.

[Captain1nsaneo]

I think Valve added a color blind mode to TF2 post production. Might be something to be looked at after release.

[Redshift]

Hi T-Ray

You're looking at the math in the wrong light imo. Sure, only a very very small percentage of the population of the entire planet will both play planetside 2 and be colorblind - as you pointed out. However, if 10 percent of males are colorblind, and your playerbase is 90 percent male, that's a full 9 percent of your players. This isn't even accounting for females who also may be colorblind.

Taking this a step further, if your target market is males who play shooter games, 10 percent of these males will be colorblind. So these decisions still affect a full 10 percent of your target market. 10 percent is 10 percent any way you cut it.

But hopefully it will be distinguishable by other means, like you said.

your math is correct, T-ray should stick to art :P, although it is worth pointing out female colourblindness is rare enough to completely ignore

[Traak]

I just don't want to see a colorblind mode that yields and advantage that we are forced to use or have a reduction in leetness fall upon us.

"Isn't the use of swirling waypoints above enemy cloakers just a bit too much advantage to be considered 'part of colorblind mode'?"

:D

[Aractain]

Wasn't the biggest problem in PS1 the names over peoples heads (since they were red and green)? So my question would be, does PS2 have names/bars etc over peoples heads? (And what colour are they?)

(Also T-Ray thinks 3% of 3.5 billion people will play PS2, thats about 100 million... optimistic.... :P The way I read it at least.)

His actual numbers would be about 40,000 colour blind people in PS2. But my numbers go like this: 1 MILLION!!!! players (I Wish) and about 75% male (because females are pretty useful too) of which lets say 7% are evil, sorry, colourblind - that means 52,500 people!

Asumtions 1 million players, 25% female (unlikely), 7% coulorblind.

Based on this SOE's projected numbers for PS2 are around 1 MILLION! :O

As you can see I am also optimistic.

[GTGD]

Hi T-Ray

You're looking at the math in the wrong light imo. Sure, only a very very small percentage of the population of the entire planet will both play planetside 2 and be colorblind - as you pointed out. However, if 10 percent of males are colorblind, and your playerbase is 90 percent male, that's a full 9 percent of your players. This isn't even accounting for females who also may be colorblind.

Taking this a step further, if your target market is males who play shooter games, 10 percent of these males will be colorblind. So these decisions still affect a full 10 percent of your target market. 10 percent is 10 percent any way you cut it.

But hopefully it will be distinguishable by other means, like you said.

1. Math is not opinionated, it is objective.

2. Your math and logic is plain wrong.

3. Unless the game is huge AND there is an abnormally high percentage of colorblind players that will refuse to support the game, it is not fiscally viable to waste money on the development of these features.

[DviddLeff]

Sorry T Ray, but your statistic argument is just plain wrong :p

The different shape basis for the empires should be enough I would imagine for the colour blind to cope with it not to mention the further differentiation of aircraft and such.

Do we have any colour blind players here who would care to comment?

[Surge72]

1. Math is not opinionated, it is objective.

2. Your math and logic is plain wrong.



There is nothing wrong with his math. I'm afraid to say that it is T-Ray who is looking at it the wrong way.

Plus T-Ray also said that only 5% of people who play games play FPSes. This is clearly not true, as the FPS genre is blatantly the most played.

[FIREk]

Just out of curiosity, what would be needed in a game like PS2 in order for it to be colorblindness-proof? Would it be stuff that can be abused by people with regular eyesight to get an advantage, like a texture pack with all enemy models having some extra-visible and ultra-contrasting color?

Friendlies will likely have nametags above their heads. Your crosshair will likely change color when you aim it at a friendly. Up close you will see the difference in shapes because the design philosophy of all the factions is that different. Finally, after the first friendly hit you will likely get a grief warning, along with a bleep.
I'm not colorblind as far as I know, but wouldn't this be enough?
Even if some of this stuff isn't in the game at first, it can be added for cheap during beta. Hopefully not after release, to avoid reviewers abusing the colorblindness bandwagon.

[GTGD]

There is nothing wrong with his math. I'm afraid to say that it is T-Ray who is looking at it the wrong way.

Plus T-Ray also said that only 5% of people who play games play FPSes. This is clearly not true, as the FPS genre is blatantly the most played.

He was using an example, learn some reading comprehension.

If 90% of PS2 players are male, and 10% of males are colorblind, that doesn't mean that 9% of PS2 players are colorblind. Just because 10% of all males are colorblind doesn't mean that 10% of males who do _____ are colorblind. In fact, because colorblindness makes it more difficult, they may be less likely to play video games. And the ones who do may be less likely to play FPS. And the ones who play FPS are probably less likely to play a MMOFPS.

In short, you need to look at it this way:

The percentage of people who are male AND colorblind AND FPS players AND PS2 players

IS LESS THAN

the percentage of people who are male AND colorblind

It's simple probability.

[T-Ray]

He was using an example, learn some reading comprehension.

If 90% of PS2 players are male, and 10% of males are colorblind, that doesn't mean that 9% of PS2 players are colorblind. Just because 10% of all males are colorblind doesn't mean that 10% of males who do _____ are colorblind. In fact, because colorblindness makes it more difficult, they may be less likely to play video games. And the ones who do may be less likely to play FPS. And the ones who play FPS are probably less likely to play a MMOFPS.

In short, you need to look at it this way:

The percentage of people who are male AND colorblind AND FPS players AND PS2 players

IS LESS THAN

the percentage of people who are male AND colorblind

It's simple probability.

AAANND he gets it ;)

What i am referring to is a subset of a subset of an even smaller subset. The assumptions are very generous in my opinion

[T-Ray]

"Some 10 million American men—fully 7 percent of the male population—either cannot distinguish red from green, or see red and green differently from most people. This is the commonest form of color blindness, but it affects only .4 percent of women. The fact that color blindness is so much more prevalent among men implies that, like hemophilia, it is carried on the X chromosome, of which men have only one copy. (As in hemophilia, women are protected because they have two X chromosomes; a normal gene on one chromosome can often make up for a defective gene on the other.)"

http://www.hhmi.org/senses/b130.html

[Bags]

But in all seriousness I think even if it's an issue for some the shapes will be enough differentiation. In PS1 I wouldn't have needed colors to tell enemies from friends.

[Traak]

Part of the problem is not being able to instantaneously differentiate the composition of a cluster of vehicles or troops by their name tag colors of red and green.

With my solution of having a graphic element in the name tag space of enemies available, it would mitigate that.

[GTGD]

Additionally, I'm pretty sure the amount of revenue that would be gained by attracting more colorblind people to the game and enticing them to buy things is insignificant compared to opportunity cost of implementing said features. Think about it:

Creating the logos, inserting them into the UI, bug testing, balancing issues. All of these would take both time and money.

Consider that it that time and money could also be used on other things like boarding/exiting animations for vehicles, creating new continents or weapons, or new decals and textures to customize your characters. Any of that would certainly have a greater impact on profitability.

T-Ray isn't being the bad guy here. The people who are financing the game's development (read: paying his salary) and who are accomplished businessmen need to decide what is the most optimal use of their resources for both SOE and the fanbase. They aren't the bad guys either, they're just doing their jobs (and doing them well).

I would even argue that most people with colorblindness would agree that it is impractical for others to go so out of their way for an issue of relative insignificance, and that has already been partially catered to in regards to shapes and other visual or auditory cues that will help them reference who is in their iron sights.

[Raymac]

I don't mean to sound insensative, because I genuinely believe that PS2 should be as inclusive as possible, but there are limits. For example, 14% of Americans are illiterate, but that doesn't mean they should take all text out of the game. While there is much that can be done, I just think it's probably impossible to design a game that is universally accessable for every condition.

On the other hand, I love the idea of each design, for vehicles and soldiers, being empire specific. So if the already expanded "shape language" is expanded a little more then that would probably go a long way in helping this minority of players. (and at the same time give the design even more depth)

[Redshift]

In fact, because colorblindness makes it more difficult, they may be less likely to play video games. And the ones who do may be less likely to play FPS. And the ones who play FPS are probably less likely to play a MMOFPS.

Thats all assumption, for all you know colourblindness may make you want to play more video games, who knows :P you can't include any assumptions like that without something to back it up.

Whatever percentage of males are colourblind should be represented in the percentage of males playing PS, unless there is a something that skews those number for example if the presence of colourblindness was related to age, now i don't pretend to know much about epidemiology of colourblindness but clearly neither do you.

Regardless, the actual number of people playing with it may make it uneconomical to cater for which is fair enough

[NapalmEnima]

AAANND he gets it ;)

What i am referring to is a subset of a subset of an even smaller subset. The assumptions are very generous in my opinion

Math Critique:

Ah, but the male population of PS2 will also be a subset of a subset etc.

So you need to consider the final ratio of color-blind players (of both genders) of your player base. I doubt it'll be 10%, true, but it might be higher than 5%.

Even so, given that you don't have a "green" empire, and the care taken with silhouettes, I don't foresee colorblindness being that much of an issue.

I certainly didn't hear an objections on that front to the color palate of PS1. I suspect that right there is going to be the biggest indicator.

You might want to have a tech support minion search your PS1 support requests for anything relevant, but other than that, I wouldn't lose any sleep over it.

PS: Thanks for answering all my questions.

[Traak]

AAANND he gets it ;)

What i am referring to is a subset of a subset of an even smaller subset. The assumptions are very generous in my opinion

No, wrong. It is not necessarily the case that the percentage goes down with each subset. The percentage stays exactly the same.

You arrive at smaller and smaller numbers of people, but you do not necessarily arrive at a smaller percentage. You may by chance, but not mathematically necessarily.

If 100 percent of men have penises, and five percent of those are gamers, and only 5 percent of those play Planetside, it doesn't mean only .025 percent of men who play Planetside have penises. Your perception of the math is wrong. Five percent of any male population anywhere is colorblind. That's five percent of gamers, five percent of Planetside gamers, five percent of any population, EXCEPT any population that excludes the colorblind.

Take a cross-section of men, say five percent are colorblind. That's, say, 100,000 guys from some population, 5000 are colorblind.

Of that 100,000 guys, seven percent are gamers. Five percent of those gamers will also be colorblind.

Of that 100,000, 1/10th of a percent play Planetside. Of those 100 guys, five percent will STILL, on average, be colorblind, which is five guys. Which is still five percent of that part of the population.

Say 50 percent of all cars are red. It doesn't matter if you slice subset after subset. If 50 percent of all cars are red, and 50 percent of all cars are Japanese, that doesn't mean only 25 percent of all Japanese cars are red. It means 25 percent of ALL cars are red AND Japanese.

So, saying the PERCENTAGE of people who are colorblind who play PS is less than the PERCENTAGE who are colorblind in the population as a whole is not a mathematical necessity. All that is a mathematical likelihood is that there are FEWER in number people who are colorblind AND play PS than there are just people who are colorblind only, in the general population.

If you have 1,000,000 users who play PS, then 50,000 will be colorblind, according to the statistics, if five percent are colorblind. And that is a significant number.

If it is seven percent, that's 70,000 people.

If seven percent of men are colorblind, then seven percent of ANY selection of men are colorblind. If they are blonde, 6' tall German-speaking PS players, there will still be seven percent of that subset that is colorblind. Seven percent of any male population doesn't somehow shrink to a smaller PERCENTAGE no matter what subset you take. It shrinks to a smaller NUMBER. But it still stands, if you have 1,000,000 users who are male, then, statistically, since they are MALE, 70,000 of them will, statistically, be colorblind. If the game is 50 bucks, do you want to throw away 3.5 million dollars by doing erroneous assumptions based on misinterpretation of set theory?

I think it would be more cost-effective to throw in a few things to cater to those who have trouble with colors, as options, than it would be to just ignore that many potential users. It's a good PR coup, too. And the small amount of graphics you would have to add to name tags as an option is not something that would take much money or brains to implement.

[Aractain]

While its funny to think T-Ray wants 100million players the actual numbers were of the 10(!) perecent of all people (males) who are colourblind, 3% of 5% of 7% are PS2 players.

Thus his actual numbers would be about 40,000 colour blind people in PS2. But my numbers go like this: 1 MILLION!!!! players (I Wish) and about 75% male (because females are pretty useful too) of which lets say 7% are evil, sorry, colourblind - that means 52,500 people!

Asumtions: 3.5billion males, 1 million players, 25% female (unlikely), 7% coulorblind.

Based on this SOE's projected numbers for PS2 are around 1 MILLION! :O


(Math is probably wrong, I think I failed it in school lol)

[GTGD]

No, wrong. It is not necessarily the case that the percentage goes down with each subset. The percentage stays exactly the same.

You arrive at smaller and smaller numbers of people, but you do not necessarily arrive at a smaller percentage. You may by chance, but not mathematically necessarily.

If 100 percent of men have penises, and five percent of those are gamers, and only 5 percent of those play Planetside, it doesn't mean only .025 percent of men who play Planetside have penises. Your perception of the math is wrong. Five percent of any male population anywhere is colorblind. That's five percent of gamers, five percent of Planetside gamers, <b>five percent of any population</b>, EXCEPT any population that excludes the colorblind.

Take a cross-section of men, say five percent are colorblind. That's, say, 100,000 guys from some population, 5000 are colorblind.

Of that 100,000 guys, seven percent are gamers. Five percent of those gamers will also be colorblind.

Of that 100,000, 1/10th of a percent play Planetside. Of those 100 guys, five percent will STILL, on average, be colorblind, which is five guys. Which is still five percent of that part of the population.

Say 50 percent of all cars are red. It doesn't matter if you slice subset after subset. If 50 percent of all cars are red, and 50 percent of all cars are Japanese, that doesn't mean only 25 percent of all Japanese cars are red. It means 25 percent of ALL cars are red AND Japanese.

So, saying the PERCENTAGE of people who are colorblind who play PS is less than the PERCENTAGE who are colorblind in the population as a whole is not a mathematical necessity. All that is a mathematical likelihood is that there are FEWER in number people who are colorblind AND play PS than there are just people who are colorblind only, in the general population.

If you have 1,000,000 users who play PS, then 50,000 will be colorblind, according to the statistics, if five percent are colorblind. And that is a significant number.

If it is seven percent, that's 70,000 people.

If seven percent of men are colorblind, then seven percent of ANY selection of men are colorblind. If they are blonde, 6' tall German-speaking PS players, there will still be seven percent of that subset that is colorblind. Seven percent of any male population doesn't somehow shrink to a smaller PERCENTAGE no matter what subset you take. It shrinks to a smaller NUMBER. But it still stands, if you have 1,000,000 users who are male, then, statistically, since they are MALE, 70,000 of them will, statistically, be colorblind. If the game is 50 bucks, do you want to throw away 3.5 million dollars by doing erroneous assumptions based on misinterpretation of set theory?

I think it would be more cost-effective to throw in a few things to cater to those who have trouble with colors, as options, than it would be to just ignore that many potential users. It's a good PR coup, too. And the small amount of graphics you would have to add to name tags as an option is not something that would take much money or brains to implement.


Too bad Planetside players are not a representative population, so you can't make those inferences.

And please stop trying to act like a business manager, it's embarrassing...

[Straws]

It's simple probability.

This is the part that people are failing to understand, and to be on the harsh side, even T-Ray and any other SOE reps which feel that this is a minor issue.

Probability is a funny thing, it works both ways. Sure, the chances are that less than the national average of colourblind people will play PS2, but you have to accept that there's a chance that MORE than the national average of colour blind people will want to play, but choose not to because of the lack of supporting features.

Saying that only x% of gamers will be colourblind is ignorant and baseless, whether you're implying that it is the same, above or below the national average...mostly because of how probability works, but also due to how products are marketed to people with various conditions (they have to be more cynical about what they purchase) and the fact that everyone here is harping on about the US national average...last I checked, this was going to be an MMO and sold to more than one country.

However, let's be sensible here. The game isn't in beta yet. Any attempts to add colour blind support features now would be a complete waste of time as changes may be made that will completely break whatever work is done.

[blakmarkit]

Would switching out the Red for blue in the HUD elements fix this? Also wondering if adding an option to turn up the brightness on the teal and gold aspects for VS and NC would take care of it.

A worry: Making a color blind mode that makes it easier to pick out people at night. That would lead to players switching to color blind mode even if they didn't have issues just for another advantage.

I'm not sure it was ever the HUD that was the problem for me. It was especially difficult in the continent/world maps and it would be a problem if I was playing VS or NC against the other. If I were to be playing as one of those empires, I'd probably be doing a lot of griefing, so I just stuck with TR, and I knew to shoot the bluish looking guys.

And yes, it's hard to think of a good way to maintain a game balance that doesn't give an advantage to non-colorblind players.

I know for myself, my brain, while it can still process color, it processes color after shape, brightness and texture. I have to actually focus on color as an attribute of something in order to comprehend it. Those tests where you write the name of a particular color in a different color font and try to read off the list? I can do those without even trying, while they completely scramble a normal person's brain. (I only speak from my own experiences, not from the experiences of the colorblind population at large)

With the stark differences between models you'll be able to tell at a difference. If you can't, then they're probably so far off you wouldn't be able to see color to differentiate them anyway. They'll be all black at a distance before you can't distinguish them by armor type anymore.
That would definitely be reassuring, if there's a recognizability similar to TF2 or some other visual style that makes it very apparent who is from what empire.

How about if you have color blind mode turned on, a bright easy to see circle appears in front of your allies when you look in their general direction (it could get smaller as they got further away so that you could still see most of their body). Anyone without the circle could be presumed an enemy.

You could play test it to make sure it was no more effective at identifying friend or foe than it is with the option is turned off for non color blind players. If it's harder to tell who is who past a certain range, the circle could match this by starting to fade away past a certain distance. Color blind players would just have to learn not to pop off shots at distant players without checking if they were a friend or enemy first, but if it was properly balanced, non color blind players would have to be equally careful.

With it only being on friendlies, it would give no advantage at spotting an enemy who is in the dark or behind cover. You still have to use your visual acuity to find the hard to spot enemies. After all, accommodating color blindness in a FPS is awesome, accommodating regular blindness in a FPS would be silly :D
This seems a decent enough solution...finding a way to grief less often would mitigate a lot of the handicapping.


Statistics say that 7-10% of all males have some form of colorblindness (usually red/green), and I imagine that PS2's player-base skews strongly male. Statistically, 10% of your players might not even be able to tell the difference between two empires. This seems to me a major concern, and something that needs to be taken extremely seriously in a game that relies so heavily on color cues. Do you have any colorblind people testing things? I believe that this is something you should strongly consider.

I don't want to be so presumptuous as to believe that I have any power to change anything, but I am so excited to play this game, and I want it to be excellent.

I have a couple of friends that are r/g cb, one that I went to art school with. I know how he dealt with it and it wasn't easy, being an artist in all.

Thank you for this post, I would like for you to respond to mine if you would...

ok, 10% of ALL males are colorblind
How many of that 10% plays video games? lets say 7% of the 10% play video games.

How many of that 7% play first person shooters? lets say 5% of the 7%

How many of that 5% will play PlanetSide2 lets so 3%

I am being generous with these numbers and I assume that a LARGE number of people will LOVE and play PS2. So if 3% is the most generous case...if you ran the company, what would be your orders?

The shape language is a large part of PS2 if all the characters were black and white, you would still be able to pick them out of a line up. Color will not be the only distingusing factor

I'm not trying to be insensitive at all, I just want to hear your thoughts.
It's cool, dude. I appreciate you taking the time to respond to my concerns.

Good for your colorblind friend, man. I'm glad that you've had that experience, because I know so many that go through art school to go into various fields and don't take much time to consider it as a problem. I have an art degree, too. I worked really hard to earn it. I understand that it's a lot to overcome.

Just to clarify, I wasn't saying the game needed to be designed around complete accessibility (colorblind, deafness, etc.), or that any game needs to be designed around accessibility. I just think that the nature of PS particularly lends itself to at least a level of consideration of the issue, being that it relies so heavily on color cues as the very identities of the factions. Take a game like StarCraft-- the factions are visibly differentiated enough that all the factions could be the same color and you'd still be able to tell which faction was which. I think, if I'm interpreting correctly, what has been inferred is that PS2 will be heading more in that type of direction, with other visual cues to present the same information in multiple ways. I guess that's my main concern is that there is a redundancy of visual information in a way that isn't overbearing or unbalancing. Like I said in my last post, I see testing at least minimally with a few colorblind people and getting their feedback on the readability of of the visual cues might offer some ways to improve the game, not just for the colorblind, but for everyone.

I think in a way, it's almost analogous to a localization issue. You want you game playable in a language that the player can interpret. You can't localize to every language, of course, either, because that is too costly, so I see the dilemma.

Statistically, I am in a fairly small minority of players, and I understand that. I'm extremely excited for this game, and the color issue in the first game was, while not a game-killer/fun-killer, it was definitely an obstacle for me to be able to be as effective a player as I could be (slow to read maps, slow to make friend/foe decisions). I'm glad, at the very least, that it's something that you've considered, and however you may or may not end up implementing any sort of solutions in the game, I appreciate you taking the time to read this and make me feel like my voice was heard.

[Traak]

Too bad Planetside players are not a representative population, so you can't make those inferences.


Keep your emotional snide gushings for yourself, please. They add nothing here, which is why they are not quoted.

Planetside players are not a representative population? What DO they represent? A cross-section of the population of Mars? To state they aren't "representative" is something you can't infer.

Your "rebuttal" has no merit.

[CutterJohn]

Still don't see how it could possibly be a big deal to have a check box in the menu. There is obviously the capability to alter the coloration of your uniform. So put a check box that says color blind mode that overrides those colors and replaces them with something more suitable. Give it a slight downside so its not preferable for people who aren't colorblind, like it overrides your own customization too or something.

I could do that in Homeworld 13 years ago.


And its not like you won't be adding anything else to the game only a minor percentage will appreciate. I'd put good money on the number of people who don't care one bit about any lore/backstory you put in is greater than the number of colorblind people who will play. I concede writer time is cheaper than programmer time, but this is hardly a major change.

[Rabb]

I feel for you colour-blind guys but if we change the colours we would no longer have Elmo, Barney and Smurf :D. That just wouldn't be PS.

Lets hope the shape differences are enough for target recognition. If not just kill'em all and let the spawn tubes sort them out.

[kaffis]

1. Math is not opinionated, it is objective.

2. Your math and logic is plain wrong.
1. is correct. 2. is not.

T-Ray's math is quoting the percentage of the WHOLE population that is represented by colorblind PS2 players. He's not accounting for the fact that the "non-colorblind PS2 players" group is less than the whole population of men in America.

If that was intentional, while I applaud his optimism (that every male in America will want to play PS2), I don't think that's a relevant calculation. ;)

Otherwise, he needs to consider that 10% of all males are colorblind. Of that 10%, 7% play video games (I'm assuming he means 70% of the 10%, or 7% of the total male population. I'll continue using percentages relative to the whole population throughout, to mirror his numbers). Of the 90 percent of colorsighted males, 63% play video games. Of those, 5% of the total population are colorblind FPSers, and 45% of the total population are colorsighted FPSers. Now, from that, 3% of the total population are colorblind PS2 players, and 27% of the total population are colorsighted PS2 players.

So, 3% vs. 27% of the total population -- now, if we actually look at percentages of the estimated 30% of all males who play PS2, 10% of those are still color-blind. So as many as 1 out of 10 (male) players of PS2 cannot tell the difference between Vanu and NC by color. Is that a problem? Potentially. It's a big enough threat that I think some focus testing in beta and being open to some alternate solutions in case shape recognition isn't enough is warranted.


Do we have any colour blind players here who would care to comment?
Yes, there's a color-blind player in this thread. IIRC, he said he had to go TR in PS1 so he can just shoot anybody who looks bluish (VS and NC alike), or else he'd get griefed out right quick.


Math Critique:

Ah, but the male population of PS2 will also be a subset of a subset etc.
[snip]
I certainly didn't hear an objections on that front to the color palate of PS1. I suspect that right there is going to be the biggest indicator.
I handled the subset of a subset above, but yes.
The objections not being heard was probably an indicator that PS1 tended to turn away (exclude) players who specifically wanted to play NC and VS (like my step-brother), or were just shrugged off if there wasn't a strong preference for empire as people just went TR (like the one poster in this thread).

I, for one, would like to see the game not exclude color blind potential players, because if it can get 10% more players without a complete redesign, I think it should. I *think* we've offered some workable solutions in this thread that wouldn't represent new major featuresets for the Forgelight engine that could assist in retaining colorblind players. For everybody who says "maybe the cross section of PS players isn't representative of the total population" -- why do you think that is? It would only be because the game presents barriers to some segments to play effectively. If you have the opportunity to remove those barriers, that's a benefit to the game.

You wouldn't exclude 10% (or less, I have no idea what the actual distribution is) of the players by saying "Anybody whose last name starts with 'J' will not be able to subscribe to our game", why would you exclude 7% who are color blind?

[Traak]

For everybody who says "maybe the cross section of PS players isn't representative of the total population" -- why do you think that is? It would only be because the game presents barriers to some segments to play effectively. If you have the opportunity to remove those barriers, that's a benefit to the game.

You wouldn't exclude 10% (or less, I have no idea what the actual distribution is) of the players by saying "Anybody whose last name starts with 'J' will not be able to subscribe to our game", why would you exclude 7% who are color blind?

This.

[Traak]

I feel for you colour-blind guys but if we change the colours we would no longer have Elmo, Barney and Smurf :D. That just wouldn't be PS.

Lets hope the shape differences are enough for target recognition. If not just kill'em all and let the spawn tubes sort them out.

We, those who are saying that color-blind options should be included, are not all emphasizing to change the colors of the game.

What we are stating is this: Make OPTIONS available so that colorblind players can have a non-imbalanced way of instantly recognizing friendlies and enemies that they can toggle.

My suggestion was a small extra graphic in player and vehicle names so the red or green becomes irrelevant. (Remember the little brackets that indicated someone was using Darklight? Not exactly a coding nightmare to throw in a couple ASCII characters in a standard player or vehicle name).

We are NOT saying to change the game for everyone else, just make toggleable options that can be used by colorblind players, and which would be annoying to others, so they won't bother with them.

[Hamma]

My brain hurts.

Far too much math for my liking in this thread. :p

[GTGD]

Keep your emotional snide gushings for yourself, please. They add nothing here, which is why they are not quoted.

Planetside players are not a representative population? What DO they represent? A cross-section of the population of Mars? To state they aren't "representative" is something you can't infer.

Your "rebuttal" has no merit.

Looks like a nerve was struck. At least you realized your mistake later on and conceded that Planetside players are not a representative population of males.

As for the question of why not expand the potential audience, it's simple finance. It just doesn't make sense to spend money on something that will barely have an affect on revenue. Opportunity cost, it was reviewed earlier in the topic.

I know you think adding an icon or a couple letters will solve everything, but that isn't the case. You don't even know if we will be able to see enemy names or health bars by default. Sure, you could implement that stuff into enhanced targeting (assuming implants are in), but then you'll have the fresh tears of people with colorblindness moaning about how it isn't fair that the game basically takes up an implant slot.

The people with colorblindness are dealing with this kind of stuff every day, so why can't you?

[Traak]

At least you realized your mistake later on and conceded that Planetside players are not a representative population of males.

There was no mistake made. If, for example, seven percent of men are colorblind, then seven percent of (potentially) PS-playing males will likely be colorblind.

So, if 70,000 players would be a potential extra userbase, out of 1,000,000, you dismiss that as being financially insignificant? That is more players than is presently playing PS, isn't it? And PS is still running.

Yes, we do not know if there will be name tags over players. It might be strictly recognizing the players by sight, in which case, players could still have options, on their computer, which do not affect what others see, that could make enemies and friendlies more obviously discernible. However, that would be something that would have to not be open to exploitation to implement.

If we had options to toggle enemies to be darker, and friendlies to be brighter, I don't think that would be a disruption of balance, no matter who used it. I used to recognize TR planes from afar, because they just looked darker than VS or NC planes.

[Bags]

My brain hurts.

Far too much math for my liking in this thread. :p


Applejack - don't you use your fancy mathematics - YouTube

[morf]

I would argue that the benefit definitely outweighs the cost. Here's the rationale:

7% of males are r/g colorblind. This doesn't factor in that caucasian males are more like 10% and that there are other forms of colorblindness that add another 2% or so. But just for the purpose of this argument, we'll stick with the base 7%.

Planetside players are not a perfect crossection of the general population. I don't think there is any statistic to indicate that a colorblind person is less likely to want to play an fps. I think if anything a colorblind player would just gravitate towards a game that is colorblind friendly. So I would argue that this would actually tilt the planetside playerbase to more than 7% colorblind if it is colorblind friendly. However, we'll still stick with the conservative 7% number, just to be fair.

Now, according to the Chinese interview with Smed, the development budget was over 50 million. So let's assume they expect to make at least double that in revenue over the years. That would be 100 million. Assuming that 7 percent of the playerbase is colorblind, they would account for 7% of revenue, which is 7 million. I think that definitely outweighs the cost of some option that slightly alters the color schemes on client side, or adds an ascii character or 2 to player names. Or hell, disables playernames for enemies and leaves them up for friendlies. We're not asking for you to reinvent the wheel here.

But one thing is for sure, the math coming from the other side of this argument is not productive. You can't look at the population of the entire planet, pick out how many are colorblind, then take the percentage of them that will play planetside 2, then determine how they compare to the population of the entire planet. It's like saying "we don't need these 300,000 colorblind 28 year old males in the USA because there are 300,000 non-colrblind 70 year old females in Timbuktu to make up for them" I can pretty much guarantee you that 0 percent of 70 year old females in Timbuktu will play PS2.

[RedKnights]

Well, I can speak personally I know two people that would have paye PS1 if they weren't colorblind.

That being said, don't give T-Ray a hard time he's an art director, i'm sure there's some of their engineers that read this forum that were on the floor laughing at his "Math" ;)

I don't think that adding something that would just simply replace the red-green reticule with something like.. Orange and Purple along with the overhead names would take not very long, i'd imagine.