A few days ago, GuideDev, creator of the Hearthstone Accessibility mod "Hearthstone Access", announced that he was going to be sunsetting the mod due to the work that was required to maintain it patch to patch. We originally posted about Hearthstone Access over a year ago when it first made its debut.
This evening, Blizzard has prepared a statement about Hearthstone Access and how they are going to be shifting resources into making Hearthstone more accessible to all. Here's what they said:
- In the Lich King Patch, a new volume option is coming to allow the game to support Mono Sound.
- In that same patch, we will be able to adjust sound channels independently instead of one global volume slider.
- They want to get Blind and Low Vision players to get back into the game with native support.
- Blizzard would like to hear feedback about accessibility and can be contacted at [email protected].
- These improvements will take time and Hearthstone will not be accessible until they are made.
You can read Blizzard's full post down below, and further that we have GuideDev's message announcing the discontinued mod.
Quote From GnomeSayin Hello all,
Some of you might be familiar with HearthstoneAccess, a wonderful third-party accessibility mod that’s been a great way for blind and low vision players to play Hearthstone. We’ve been in constant communication with GuideDev, its developer, and have implemented measures to make development of the mod easier. We’re big fans of their work!
We’ve also been working on improvements to Hearthstone’s native accessibility, with the aim of complementing the functionality that HearthstoneAccess provided. For example, the combination of Hearthstone’s music, sound effects, character dialog, and tavern ambience (the voice murmurs in the background) can conflict with the audibility of screen-reading software trying to convey the state of the game. We know there may be a number of reasons why a player might want to adjust these different channels independently, whether that’s needing to focus on particular noises, finding certain sounds distracting, or simply preferring a different audio balance than what is default. In a patch after March of the Lich King launches, we’re adding expanded Audio Settings to support separate volume controls for each of these, along with an option for Mono Sound.
With HearthstoneAccess mod support ending, we’ve made the decision to shift our work in this area—instead of working on accessibility features that complement HearthstoneAccess, we’ll be exploring what it will take to implement native accessibility features that allow for our blind and low vision community to get back into the game. We’re incredibly appreciative of everything that GuideDev has done for our community and we’re very excited to continue expanding our game’s accessibility.
A project of this magnitude and importance will take time to complete. We’re very sorry to our friends and players who won’t have access to Hearthstone during this time. If you have further accessibility feedback, you can contact us at [email protected]. That feedback is sent directly to the game teams, and while we can’t reply to all the messages we receive, they help us prioritize our development so that we’re working on what matters most to our players.
Once again, thank you to GuideDev and to all our players in the blind and low vision communities. We’ve been encouraged by so many players coming together to show their support for this issue and look forward to sharing more details with you once we have them.
GuideDev's Original Message
Quote From GuideDev Sunsetting Hearthstone Access
Hello everyone. Guide Dev here.
After a year and a half of Hearthstone Access, I'm sad to announce that version 24.6 will be the last major version of Hearthstone I'll be able to support.
I'm hoping to release 24.6 later today so you'll still be able to play for a while longer. However, once the next major patch lands, I will no longer be updating Hearthstone Access to work with the newer version. I'm not entirely sure on when that'll be, but I'm assuming it'll happen on a Tuesday between now and December 6 as that's the planned release date for the new expansion.
I know a lot of players will be sad to hear this. Please know that I am sad too and that I do not make this decision lightly. I deeply appreciate the community built around Hearthstone Access and I hope you've enjoyed playing the game over these past 15 months as much as I've enjoyed watching everyone play it.
This was the first time I worked on anything accessibility-wise and I truly loved the process. Watching someone play and interact with a blind-accessible interface you've just designed for the first time as a sighted developer is immensely rewarding. I really hope Hearthstone Access serves as an example of how even complex, chaotic games such as Battlegrounds can be made blind-accessible - and fun - for many years to come.
Having said that, carrying Hearthstone Access on my back all this time has become increasingly difficult and the time has come for me to take a step back. I really, really hate to be doing this, but the last few months have been extremely busy and I've been seriously struggling to keep up with everything.
Hearthstone Access has been suffering with this as well as I simply don't have as much time as I once had to devote to it. With all the recent (and upcoming) changes, it's gotten to a point where I think Hearthstone Access is just getting worse with every patch (while Hearthstone itself is getting better). This was never the intention - and I'm really not happy with it.
I'll see if I can write a proper retrospective at some point. For now though, I just wanted to give everyone a heads up as I know a lot of players depend on me updating Hearthstone Access in order to play the game and I don't want people to be pre-purchasing content for the new expansion if they don't have other means of accessing it.
Thanks for all the support.
Guide Dev
Comments
Really happy to hear this news honestly. First read it on the bliz forums, and as someone who has been actively advocating for this, it's just so heart-warming and rewarding to hear this from them.
I'd also like to thank the hearthstone community in general. You guys have been amazing, empathetic and supportive beyond anything I have experienced before from an online sighted gaming community.
kudos to blizzard for taking this extra step to make a game fully playable to the blind/visually impaired community. you just don't here a company going to these lengths. there actually may be some damn good players in that community that can give us a run for our money lol.....i have talked my trash about blizz when they screw up with these patches/updates, but i also have to acknowledge when they make good moves to be fair. i really tip my hat off to them. think i'm actually going to purchase some packs, least i can do is support them a bit through my pockets, for someone at the company having a good heart. rant over
When this was first announced, I initially thought Blizzard would patch the exploits used that allow this to work because they could also be used for evil. It's certainly nice that this was able to continue to exist though.
From the few minutes I spent reading on the subject, it seems that DLL injection in Windows is all but impossible to prevent anyway, and the best they can do is catch people using such methods to cheat and ban them.
I haven't read the full article, but I really hope they bring back the old Death Knight card border. The current one is just a recolor of the Warrior one, which is not great for colorblind people.
(Also, the previous one was very cool)
They already said that the one being showed in the cars is a temporary, they screwed some deadline and missed the one that's going.
Noice
Maybe Blizzard should hire GuideDev for this? I mean, that guy was working alone with it for 1,5 years, he's got some experience with that
You talk like getting hired by Blizzard some kind of reward. I mean they can try but game dev salaries are significantly below IT standards.
Quitting your job to implement one specific feature can be a tough sell
Hmmm, it wasn't my intention, I don't worship them or something, it's just this guy have experience with it and I think Blizz could use some of help. Let's be honest - those lads started to do something with Access when GuideDev stated he can no longer work on it, or at least that's how it looks to me
This is an excellent example of an accessibility option granting significant advantages for the conventionally-abled. Much like how wheelchair ramps can be useful for people not in wheelchairs (ill people or people moving furniture), close-captioning is great for when sound would be a distraction, and push-button automatic doors come in handy even if you don't have a disability, this feature not only will allow disabled persons to play the game, but it will vastly improve the experience of everyone, because:
The ambient tavern noise should be drug out into the street and shot.
Personally, that chatter-loop is the main reason I have to play with the sound off the majority of the time. I generally like to play video games with the ambiance the devs shipped with the product, but Hearthstone is a harsh exception because that stupid loop is utterly tedious and wasn't even fun on day one.
I imagine that this will make things easier for streamers and other content creators as well.
These features would obviously be excellent even without these knock-on benefits, but it's good to see a great decision have good incidental side-effects.
It's great news that Blizzard is going to take the reins on this. But two things:
I don't know; maybe I'm off-base, but it feels like Blizzard gets to play "the hero" in this situation despite sort of creating it by not helping out more initially, and that doesn't seem right. Although as long as the people get the help they need it's a win, so...yay Blizzard?
I understand your perspective and in an ideal world I think you're right, but honestly I can't think of other games that go out of their way to make tools for blind players to play. When I saw the news about the program being deprecated and people asking blizzard to provide native support I assumed it was a pipe dream. For the most part accessibility features in games rarely go beyond colorblind mode and difficulty scaling. Personally I think a commitment like this to work on the problem so soon after the issue was brought to their attention is about as much as we could have hoped for.
Sea of Thieves has implemented several features over the years to hep accessibility for blind crewmates/players