World of Warcraft’s big 6.1 patch will add some support for colourblind gamers, namely by adding three special filters designed to assist players who have one of three types of the condition.
In addition to that, there will be a special UI designed for colourblind players, adding helpful words and phrases to tooltips throughout the game that typically use colours to signify information.
”For example,” explains Blizzard, ”when you move your mouse cursor over a piece of rare gear and then a piece of epic gear, the game colors the names of the items blue and then purple, respectively. With ‘UI Colorblind Mode’ enabled, the game will add the words “Rare” and “Epic” to the tooltips for those items. For players who find it difficult to discern between friendly, neutral, or hostile targets, additional indication text in the tooltip will now appear when you move your mouse cursor over other characters.”
Each of the filters will help those affected by the three types of dichromacy - protanopia, deuteranopia, and tritanopia.
Nice to see Blizzard making special considerations for some of their fans who have unique conditions. The 6.1 patch is currently in WoW’s Public Test Realm, and includes several graphical improvements and new quests.