No Barriers to Fun!

We met our friend Giddeon at the AbleGamers Accessibility Arcade in Atlantic City, New Jersey. When he first sat down with the AbleGamers crew, Giddeon didn't want to play any games. He told us that with his disability gaming was difficult. Giddeon has a rare disease that caused the growth of his arms .. Read More
A Window to the World

Shepherd University invited the AbleGamers Foundation to come on campus and do one of our Accessibility Arcades for the students and local disabled community. The event was a roaring success with hundreds of children and adults coming out to see the technology and in some cases experience gaming the first time. Read More

About the AbleGamers Foundation

Since 2004, the AbleGamers Foundation, a 501(c)(3) public charity, has served more than 56 million members of the disabled community by advocating greater access in video games. Today, AbleGamers is a leader in the development of equipment, programs and services to those living with disabilities, hardships, and quality-of-life issues that are a result of chronic illness or trauma. It is our goal to ensure that all people, regardless of their disability, can use gaming as a tool to have enriched social experiences with friends, family, and the world at large.

At E3 | Tera Preview with Chris Hager

Written by Marco Pasqua

Published on 08 June 2011

E3-2011-tera-chris-hager

Tera is an innovative Action MMO game where there is far more to the combat sequences than your average MMO. Combat involves positioning, timing, aim and determination to be successful. Tera was designed to truly involve the player; this is not an MMO where you can play the game, watch TV and make food all at the same time. “Tera seamlessly integrates elements such as questing, PvP combat and crafting into its all action, no faction approach.”

The graphics for the game are extremely attractive and enticing. In many respects the creatures and landscape remind me of the movie Avatar. The landscaping is very lush with beautiful vistas and dark, scary dungeons.

Tera’s producers focused very strongly on player engagement stating that the combat is extremely gratifying and is all about player’s skill. The political system adds a whole new depth to player engagement beyond just guilds and chat boards. Players influence the world around them with taxes, imprisoning characters, opening shops, getting votes and rising to power. The world of Tera involves seven races (human to elin) and eight classes (warrior to mystic) with hundreds of monsters to battle and the possibilities for thousands of quests.

Tera players needs a combination of strength, popularity and influence to gain power and get voted in. Once in power, you are influential and can control what happens in your province. You can run events so that players come into your province and spend money in your province. Everyone will know who the person in power in that territory is.

E3-2011-tera-preview I had the opportunity to sit down with Chris Hager, Producer on the new Action MMO game, Tera. We discussed accessibility in relation to game play and how our users can access this game. Not only is the game completely customizable in terms of key mapping but they even support control plug-ins so that users can use their favorite peripheral. This will mean that users with precision issues will have comfort in knowing that they can play the game like they play any other game on their PC. Chris also went on to tell me that users who are colorblind should not have any issues playing the game because any color indicator is accompanied by a visual indicator that explains exactly what they are to do. Overall, he and his team seem like great people and I think that the game is on the right track to being a very successful title.