[Freeciv-Dev] Re: freeciv accessibility to the blind

[Christian Knoke <chrisk@xxxxxxxxx>]

On Wed, Aug 20, 2003 at 09:34:19AM -0700, Paul Zastoupil wrote:
> On Wed, Aug 20, 2003 at 10:45:58AM +0200, Christian Knoke wrote:
> > On Wed, Aug 20, 2003 at 08:00:29AM +0000, Per I. Mathisen wrote:
> > > On Tue, 19 Aug 2003, Zachary wrote:
> > > > I have been aware of freeciv for about six or seven months and have come
> > > > to notice something quite rare in computer games today. Namely, that
> > > > this game is accessible to blind and visually impaired players.I am a
> > > > windows user, so I cant comment on the x-windows release.

> > One idea I bear for some time is a speech output (take it as a fourth
> > messages option). That can free you from these popups, that I think are
> > sometimes quite annoying.
> > 
> > This can also warn you, when enemy units approach.
> > 
> > Since most freeciv messages consist of simple patterns, it should be
> > possible to record, store, and build them together, in ogg format for
> > example (Translators will need a mike :=).
> 
> I think this is a really bad idea.  TTS (Text to speach) should be
> used.  The only reason someone would want to do this in a game is if you
> got some real voice talent and it added more than just information.

AFAIK TTS speech quality isn't overwhelming; quality and availablility
differs between languages; needs a lot of download, and cpu capacity.

If you concentrate on the main messages, you won't need that many text.

Christian

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Christian Knoke          * * *          http://www.cknoke.de
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