Arachnophobia and Ashes

Kudos on how awesome the spiders look in this game. They way they leap and move, right down to how they attack. It's creepy and feel so right.

About 15% of the population suffer from Arachnophobia and the majority of the people who suffer from Arachnophobia are women.

As a man who plays with my wife that suffers from this. I'm asking that you please have options for people like my darling wife. Some games have settings that turn all spiders into something else graphically. A blob, a bunny etc.

I can't count how many times my wife is hiding under her desk when playing an MMO and she is waiting for the spiders to be dead.

I know I will be bashed for this but watching my wife losing her mind in games and seeing how other games accommodate people like her. I am ready to be made fun of. Thanks to the Devs for considering this or just for reading my post. I make this post for all men that love to game with their wives that suffer from this. Families that game together, stay together.

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unknownsystemerror

This is not the first time it has been mentioned. Give the forums a search and you will find larger threads that discuss that issue. So far as I remember, there are no plans to cater to any group based on their specific fears.

catibrie

As said wife. I hope dispite posts in the past. The deves change their minds lol

Depraved

nanfoodle wrote: »

Kudos on how awesome the spiders look in this game. They way they leap and move, right down to how they attack. It's creepy and feel so right.

About 15% of the population suffer from Arachnophobia and the majority of the people who suffer from Arachnophobia are women.

As a man who plays with my wife that suffers from this. I'm asking that you please have options for people like my darling wife. Some games have settings that turn all spiders into something else graphically. A blob, a bunny etc.

I can't count how many times my wife is hiding under her desk when playing an MMO and she is waiting for the spiders to be dead.

I know I will be bashed for this but watching my wife losing her mind in games and seeing how other games accommodate people like her. I am ready to be made fun of. Thanks to the Devs for considering this or just for reading my post. I make this post for all men that love to game with their wives that suffer from this. Families that game together, stay together.

wow when you think youve seen everything, then this thread pops up about a year later than the exact same thread lol.

i dont really mind if they add such setting, but they would probably have to add it for everything...what if people have phobias to bunnies, or slimes, or zombies, or trees, or anything really...

Serithis

It's amazing how long people have stretched this whole exaggerated Arachnophobia meme that it has become a cultural sentiment of entitlement to demand games have arachnophobia modes. This is why game devs, please use your better judgment when prioritizing decision making and not go down this slippery slope of listening to popular outcry based on bandwagons just because everyone wants to feel good about themselves
Nobody would have ever asked for these things, but now that they see other games catering to this, they are getting bold enough to think they're so special that others should cave to their petty sentiment

Serithis

unknownsystemerror wrote: »

This is not the first time it has been mentioned. Give the forums a search and you will find larger threads that discuss that issue. So far as I remember, there are no plans to cater to any group based on their specific fears.

Don't worry, he's very well aware it's not the first. after all, he never came up with this idea himself. Just repeating what's popular because it makes him feel like he fits in somewhere

Depraved

Serithis wrote: »

unknownsystemerror wrote: »

This is not the first time it has been mentioned. Give the forums a search and you will find larger threads that discuss that issue. So far as I remember, there are no plans to cater to any group based on their specific fears.

Don't worry, he's very well aware it's not the first. after all, he never came up with this idea himself. Just repeating what's popular because it makes him feel like he fits in somewhere

hey dont be mean!

well u can be, freedom of speech and all that, but you dont know if he is saying that because of the reasons you listed

Dezemi

While I understand where you (and your wife) come from (as I also suffer from a phobia that is common in MMOs), I'll just repeat what I said regarding this very discussion about a year ago:

"Catering to phobias is opening a can of worms."

Which phobias are common enough to have a phobia-setting? Could the exclusion of certain not-as-common phobias be considered discrimination? What about availability for other kind of limitations? (Physical as psychological)

We players are responsible to manage our own fears and either overcome them or leave the game, as harsh as that may sound. My phobia of open waters caused me to delete characters when they got bugged into open water, and limited my quest progression when quest zones in oceans arrived .... However, as I grew up, I learned how to manage my phobia to the degree where I can do quests in open water and even handle certain ocean bosses even though it often brings me great discomfort. I'd go as far as saying all in all, through games I gained a controlled environment where I could face my phobia bit by bit... And I came out better for it in the end.

Azherae

Dezmerizing wrote: »

Which phobias are common enough to have a phobia-setting?

I suppose I probably should chime in here too again...

This one. Arachnophobia.

Devs didn't just randomly decide that this was the one they were going to cater to. So, for Intrepid, even if you don't care about any of the others. This one is the one you fix.

Nerror

I gotta admit I am torn on this topic. I waffle back and forth a lot.

On the one hand, I am very pro accessibility options in games for people with various disabilities, and I can see why it might even make economic sense for Intrepid to help alleviate the most common phobias. At least if the game becomes popular enough to attract a large player-base, where even a few percent more players due to phobia settings makes it economically viable to invest the time and resources.

But.. phobias are very treatable in many cases. Exposure treatment in particular is very effective in curing arachnophobia. More easily than many physical disabilities at the very least. I don't think there's a cure for colour blindness, for example.

So at some point I also think it's the responsibility of players to work on those phobias if they become a problem in their lives, not the responsibility of a game company. So my advice to the OP and wife is to look into exposure treatment for arachnophobia in your area. It will improve your life way beyond just playing Ashes, if it's that strong.

AnimusRex

I have claustrophobia so no caves please. And I burn easily, so no sunlight thanks.

Or germs, snakes, air travel, sea travel, birds, heights, dogs, stairs, hairless cats, mice, rats, public speaking.
thunder, lightning, needles, crowds, open spaces, chickens, intimacy, mothers in law, failure, rejection or loneliness.

Thank you.

Kilion

Here is the Link to the previous discussion about arachnophobia.
But I'll sum up some of the points I made back then quickly:

Mob behavior will become invisible because the body of the spider is part of what indicates its moves to us
It creates a lot of extra work to replace all types of spider mobs with some other type of creature to replace all the animations and models

As an additional point I will now add that starting to add phobia modes will mean we have to start a whole debtate about various phobias as well and therefore potentially have massive amounts of redesigns to accomodate everyone affected by them.

It's estimated that around 17% of people suffer from Trypophobia (Fear of Circle Clusters)
About 12,5% of people report to suffer from Claustrophobia - adjusting to that won't even work with a phobia mode
Acrophobia and Aerophbia (fear of heights & flying) could be an issue when trying to use flying or gliding mounts as well as exploring high places like mountains, ridges, towers or floating islands - here we are talking 10-40% of adults
Ophidiophobia (fear of snakes) even is said to affect 10-30% of people
Cynophobia (fear of dogs & wolves) affects around 9% of people
Necrophobia (the fear of death) can become so intense that one has a severe aversion against anything that reminds someone of death - like the undead in games/movies

Why am I making this list and added percentages to it (I just googled these, I cant reliably say they are all accurate): There are a lot of phobias that could potentially be triggered when playing games and when we introduce a "anti-archnophobia mode" we find ourselves in a very long discussion on how to identify a "legitimate phobia" and how to address it, where all of the above could become relevant, with widespread implications on the game design.

Which is why I think this is a bigger can of worms than one might think at first. I myself suffered from trychophobia in the past, but since I cant avoid coming across gross porous nastiness in fantasy games at times I had to learn deal with it to enjoy my hobby more. I'm not the end-all-be-all in this but I think this can be an opportunity to grow in real life, face and conquer a fear, rather than just ask for accomodations of just ones own circumstances. while others are in a similar spot.

daveywavey

AnimusRex wrote: »

I have claustrophobia so no caves please. And I burn easily, so no sunlight thanks.

Or germs, snakes, air travel, sea travel, birds, heights, dogs, stairs, hairless cats, mice, rats, public speaking.
thunder, lightning, needles, crowds, open spaces, chickens, intimacy, mothers in law, failure, rejection or loneliness.

Thank you.

Wow, you poor poor person.

daveywavey

nanfoodle wrote: »

I know I will be bashed for this but watching my wife losing her mind in games and seeing how other games accommodate people like her. I am ready to be made fun of.

Jhoren

I have a friend who suffered from it. She would just panic when she saw a spider and scream and try to run away if she could. She got treatment for it, and while she's still not happy about them, she no longer gets those panic attacks and can handle seeing them just fine. I think she went for 10 sessions, but she got past the worst after like 5 times.

I completely understand that depending on where you live and how much it costs, it might not be an option for everyone, but if it's possible, it's worth looking into. She's happy she got the treatment at least, and it was worth it for her.

As for adding anti-phobia things to the game, I don't really have a strong opinion either way.

AnimusRex

daveywavey wrote: »

AnimusRex wrote: »

I have claustrophobia so no caves please. And I burn easily, so no sunlight thanks.

Or germs, snakes, air travel, sea travel, birds, heights, dogs, stairs, hairless cats, mice, rats, public speaking.
thunder, lightning, needles, crowds, open spaces, chickens, intimacy, mothers in law, failure, rejection or loneliness.

Thank you.

Wow, you poor poor person.

Thank you.

Signed,
Bubble Boy

nanfoodle

https://youtu.be/YF5qbRj4JIE?si=wMa7UYy9Fl2SN6sh

Arya_Yeshe

I have no idea what to do in regard of that in a very complex game like AoC, then in the future all future mobs, bosses, updates it's just extra work

Kilion

So what are we going to do against all the other phobias?

Depraved

nanfoodle wrote: »

https://youtu.be/YF5qbRj4JIE?si=wMa7UYy9Fl2SN6sh

that looks creepy...when maxed

Aszkalon

As someone who has quite the Arachnophobia myself,

i learned to more or less "tolerate" and accept the Fact, that in WoW there are People in Raids of mine, who use HUUUGE Spider-Mounts when they basically "ride inside my Character" because there is no Collision that prevents it,

or that i sometimes run through a HUUUGE field of Spiders in Dungeons, Raids, etc.

For some Reason, i just know they are just Pixels and can not jump out of the Screen to crawl on me. 😅

I wonder how an "Arachne-Censor" Mode would function. Would be funny to see them all move around as mean-looking Slimes or something.

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