Playing Eve Online with my eyes

I am completely confined to a wheelchair now, which makes it Impossible forward me to use a mouse. So it is on to playing via my eye gaze system, the Tobii PcEye. I assumed that Eve would be simple, as it is pretty much all point and click, and mostly strategy rather than twitch. However used with the Tobii software there is a quirk.

The latest version comes with Gaze Select, which avoids the Midas Touch of dwell clicking, where you click on lots of unwanted things just because your eyes rested in one place too long. It does this by having a little on screen menu bar from which you select the type of click, left click, double click, move cursor etc. Generally this two stage process works well, and doesn't slow things down too much.

However with Eve, there is a problem. For some reason, and it only happens with Eve so far, the left click doesn't update the cursor position.This means that the click actually takes place at the previous cursor position, which is a little disconcerting. I can get round this by moving the cursor first then left clicking, and even then, menus are a little hit or miss. The best way I've found is to place the cursor first, then click with my foot pedal.

What this means in game terms, is that I can do about everything, but it is a little slow. This doesn't matter for most aspects of the game. I can still mine, manufacture, chat or even do missions. What I can't do is pvp. Not with any success, anyway. And since I can't talk voice comms are off too, though I can listen. So in a word, I am a carebear. No change there then. Carry on.

Accessible Game Review - World of Warcraft

4/5
World of Warcraft is the big daddy of MMO's. In fact this was originally a WoW blog. I haven't played it for a couple of years though, so I was interested to see how accessible it was (and whether Blizzard had in fact jumped the shark with the Kung Fu pandas).

In the event I was pleasantly surprised on both counts. WoW doesn't need much setting up to play. Simply bind the middle mouse button to Move and Steer and you're away. The pandas aren't too bad either and the new continent is very lush.

WoW only loses a point because it still needs a bit of jumping, which I can't really do with the onscreen keyboard, and because you don't automatically face your opponents. Generally recommended, though.

Mouse Bindings

left button - Same as default profile
right button - Same as default profile
middle button - No change (do not intercept)

In-Game Key Bindings

move and steer - middle button

To make sense of the ratings look here.

Accessible Game Review - Lord of the Rings Online

4/5

Lord of the Rings Online is a fairly standard MMO in the vein of WoW or countless others, but it's set in middle earth, so that's okay. Most of the commands are fairly standard, but it does have one slight quirk.
Simply binding the W key to the middle mouse button allows you to walk forward, but not to turn, so I've had to be a bit creative. Binding both the W key and the right mouse button for the duration of the key press seems to do the trick.

Mouse Bindings

left button - Same as default profile
right button - Same as default profile
middle button - Simulated Keys (during) [W,{RMB}]

To make sense of the ratings look here.

Accessible Game Review - Skyrim

1/5

Skyrim looks like a good game, and gets great reviews, but if you can't use a keyboard, forget it. The developers desire to have a nice immersive experience with no window clutter means that it is relentlessly keyboard focused. That wouldn't be so bad, except that even in windowed mode it captures the mouse within the game window. This means of course, that you can't use the onscreen keyboard at all. It won't even accept ALT-TAB commands from X Mouse Button Control, not that that would help, anyway.

You can bind the forward movement to the footswitch to move around, but that doesn't help you to open boxes, look at your inventory, or perform a hundred other keyboard based functions.

I do wish that developers would implement standard windows behavior.The standards are there for a reason y'know.

In a word, avoid.

In-Game Key Bindings

move forward - MB3

To make sense of the ratings look here.

Accessible Game Review - Star Wars The Old Republic

3/5

The only major problem I have is that my targeting speed is a bit slow, since I can't tab target. I also have a slight issue with jumping, which requires me to pull up the onscreen keyboard and click the space bar while running forwards. Lastly, whilst the game will automatically target an enemy who attacks you, it won't move the camera round so that you can actually see what you're fighting.

Mouse Bindings

left button - Same as default profile
right button - Same as default profile
middle button - No change (do not intercept)
In game middle button - Move forward

To make sense of the ratings look here.