This past Friday through Sunday was Warhammer online's free preview weekend.  AbleGamers' Mark Barlet recently previewed the Warhammer UI before the weekend even happened.  Encouraged by the look of the UI, thanks to his photos, I decided to try out the game for myself to see how it handled for somebody that cannot use the DX-1 game pad Mark uses.

Just for a little bit of background; I mouse every game I play, using the keyboard in order to play a game for any sustained length of time is just not an option for me.  Unfortunately, to add another monkey wrench to the mix, just because a game can be played completely by using the mouse, that does not mean that the mouse speed will be fast enough for someone with low dexterity.

Once logged into the game, my first reaction was to check the options menu to see what kinds of adoptions I could make to the game.  Right off the bat, I noticed that there was no way to adjust the sensitivity of the mouse.  Now, most every game has a sensitivity level that adjusts the speed of which you move the mouse while you are in that game.  However, this one did not, so I wondered to myself; does this game have a file that holds the parameters for the game?

Eureka!  There is such a file that controls the settings for Warhammer online, an XML file named settings can be found in C:\\<wherever your beta folder is held>\Warhammer online beta\user.  As you can see by the photo, once you open up the file as a notepad, the various settings for controlling the game will be displayed.  Scroll down towards the bottom until you see "mouse sensitivity" and the numbers 0.50.  That is the default setting for the speed of the mouse.  You can change this variable to anything you want; I decided to put mine at 30.00, although I started at 5000 and worked my way down.

 

 Now that I had figured out how to use the game with the special needs that I have for the mouse, I promptly logged into Warhammer online and started my free preview weekend.  AbleGamers can officially tell you that no matter what your general disability is, this game may have the ability to accommodate you.  We have found that game pads work extremely well, the game can be fully moused, and alternatively third party programs such as voice commands, sip and puff, and other input devices work with 100% proficiency.

The only drawback that we have been able to detect so far is that online keyboards appear to be useless.  This could be due to the type of keyboard there we are using or due to the fact that it is a beta software interface.  Perhaps as time goes on on-screen keyboard will be fully integrated, if not, you can count on AbleGamers to be hounding Mythic and EA to implement the use of this final accessibility hurdle.