Visually impaired player guide

This guide is intended to help players who are visually impaired, especially those who use a text-to-speech screen reading program like Freedom Scientific's JAWS, to connect to Gemstone IV and be successful in learning its various quirks. Currently only Simutronics' Web FE is slightly accessible to the blind, though it does not provide the easiest experience overall. It is, however, possible to connect to the game using third-party fully-accessible MUD clients like GMA Games' VIP MUD, which is covered in this guide.

Connecting to the Game

NOTE: These steps work best when you already have a character created on your account. When creating a new character slot, you may be automatically routed to the Web FE initially. Do not be alarmed if this happens - the Web FE should be accessible enough to allow you to create your character. When your character leaves the character manager and enters the world at large, you can be free to close the Web FE and re-login in using this method to connect through VIP MUD.

Recommended Browser: Mozilla Firefox

Acquiring the Login Key

• Visit play.net/gs4, enter your login credentials and hit the 'GO PLAY' button. You will be logged in and redirected to the character selection page.
• Select the radio button that corresponds to the character you want to play.
• Select the radio button next to StormFront in the section for front ends. If you do not see a Front End selection, you may have to find some clickable text that says something like 'Other Ways to Connect' and hit the enter key on it to expand this list. (NOTE: Do not install StormFront or any of the other software suggested here.)
• Hit the 'Go Play' button.
• You should receive a dialog asking you to Open or Save a file with a '.sal' ending. It is usually named after the character you are trying to log in. Prompt this file to open in Notepad, Wordpad or any Word processor. (NOTE: Firefox is recommended due to the prompting of this file opening always happening using this browser and IE is less than reliable.)
• Find the host and port information in this file that you will need to create a profile for Gemstone IV on your mud client. They are listed after 'GAMEHOST=' and 'GAMEPORT='.
• Move to the bottom of the '.sal' file and find the entry with the prefix 'KEY='. This is your login key. Select all these characters that appear after 'KEY=', except the equals sign, and copy it to your clipboard.
• Prompt your MUD client to connect to the host/port for Gemstone IV found above. You should see some text including the word 'MODE' and the client will then appear to hang, as it is waiting for your input.
• Paste the login key you copied from the '.sal' file into your client and hit 'enter' to send it to the MUD. The client will still appear to hang, but this is normal - it is waiting for one more piece of information, which is a line indicating what client you are using.
• Type'>/FE:JAVA' and hit enter. You should now be connected to the game and be receiving the login scroll.
• NOTE: If you receive an 'invalid login key' message, you may have copied the login key from the '.sal' file incorrectly. Ensure you don't have any errant whitespace characters and have copied all characters /except/ for the 'KEY=' at the beginning. If you still get this message, you can attempt to logout of the website completely using 'Full Logout' and try again after re-logging in, as there may have been an error on the server's end.

VIP MUD

• Open up VIP MUD.
• You should hear something like MUD Character List upon startup (after you have unlocked it from demo mode).
• If not, hit Alt key to open the menu, go down until you hear "Connect", then use right arrow once to get the Character Setup/Connect option and hit enter.
• You will want to do Ctrl+A while this is open to add a new Character profile.
• You'll be in a box that says <Unnamed. Type your character's name in there.
• Hit tab key.
• Type your Character name again.
• Hit tab.
• Type in Gemstone IV or Gemstone in the Listbox.
• Hit tab into the first textbox after the Listbox which should now say whatever you typed in the ListBox.
• Hit tab again to the first empty text box.
• Type storm.gs4.game.play.net.
• Hit tab to enter the next text box.
• Type 10024.
• Hit tab several more times until you find the OK button and hit that (you do not need to change anything else)

Recommended Settings

Below are several highly recommended commands for new players to do, to make the game less disruptive when using a screen reader.

Recommended VIP MUD Tweaks

In the entry box for VIP MUD type #trigger *> {#gagline} to turn off status prompts (the > you get every line feed preceded at times by letters)

Recommended GemStone Settings

Inside of any client with which the user is connecting to GemStone, they will want to do the following things:

• FLAG LOGON OFF -- this flag turns off seeing players logging "into" the game, "flag logon on" to turn it back on
• FLAG LOGOFF OFF -- this flag turns off seeing players logging "out" of the game, "flag logoff on" to turn it back on
• FLAG DISCONNECT OFF -- this flag turns off seeing players that get disconnected from the game, "flag disconnect on" to turn it back on
• FLAG SHOWDEATHS OFF -- this turns off seeing character deaths, "flag showdeaths on" to turn it back on
• FLAG COMBATBRIEF ON -- this shortens the information you get during combat (be aware that this flag is reversed from the flags listed above), "flag combatbrief off" to turn it off and display combat messaging normally
• FLAG COMBATSELFFULL ON -- this combines with combatbrief so that you see "your" combat messaging in full, "flag combatbrief off" to turn this off but it's okay to keep it on
• FLAG INACTIVITY ON -- this increases the amount of time before the system logs you off for being inactive.
• FLAG DEATH OFF -- this increases the amount of time between dying and the system automatically logging you out.
• FLAG ANNOUNCETPS OFF -- this turns off the game sending frequent messages about every time your field experience converts into training points.
• FLAG DIALOGS OFF -- this turns off the dialog pop-up boxes and instead puts the information in the main story window.
• FLAG SHOWSERVICE OFF -- this turns off a large text block upon login about what services are in the area. Services can always be viewed by typing SERVICE SHOW.
• FLAG SORTEDVIEW ON -- this sorts out a container by type of item, which is very useful for mental grouping of information.
• FLAG NOAMBIENTMSG ON -- this turns off ambient fluff messages from other players' items which may be distracting and overwhelming when learning the game. It doesn't work with all scripts, but should help to cut down some of the text clutter.
• ESP TOGGLE -- this turns off the game wide thought net which is used to communicate with other players not in the same room as you, "esp toggle" to turn it back

Additional recommendations: set local echo, music off, sound off, images off.

Skills and Training

If you've already started to play and have begun to gain experience, you'll begin to notice messages telling you that you've earned training points. These are great for spending on skills, though part of the message can be confusing to a player who is visually impaired and connecting through a third-party accessible client. The message mentions the GOALS verb, which will not work when using a third-party client due to the fact attempts to launch a web-based Skills Manager. A third-party client will not know how to properly launch this manager and the command will appear to hang.

Skills, however, can successfully be trained completely in-game using the CHECK IN command at any local inn. You can use DIR INN to get directions to the nearest Inn that will allow you to CHECK IN. Be sure to find the "Front Desk" room within the inn, as this is the room where you can use the CHECK IN verb. Follow the numbered prompts to 'Adjust Skill Goals', which will open a 2-column layout of skills available to train in. The amount of training points you have is listed at the bottom, along with a helpful list of commands and examples on how to raise or lower skills.

The 2-column layout of this in-game Skills Manager is a bit clunky to get used to when using a screen reader, unfortunately, due to the contents of the first column needing to be read before you can hear the contents of the second column. The numbers corresponding to the skills never change, however, and it can be easy enough to keep a separate document listing which skills you need to train in each level and their corresponding numbers - before long, you'll have them memorized.

Here's a bit of help to orient you to the 2-column layout. I like to think of each column being divided into 3 sections, so technically an uneven grid of 6 sections.

• First column, top: Armor/Shield and Weapon Types
• First column, middle: Complimentary Physical Skills, such as Combat Maneuvers and Dodging
• First column, bottom: Tertiary Helper Skills like Climbing, Lockpicking and First Aid
• Second column, top: Generic Magical Skills like Spell Aiming, Magic Item Use and Mana Control
• Second column, top middle: Spell Circles/Spell Research
• Second column, middle and bottom: Lores, separated into sections