Colorblindness

Over the years I have needed to explain (often at length) the extent of my colorblindness.

Back in December was the last time I had several chances to explain to various folks the issues I have in-game (WOW) as far as colors are concerned.

Wikipedia has a very good page which features an article towards the middle that includes four seperate graphics with colored numbers imposed on a background that sufferers of colorblindness have difficulty differentiating between.

I am able to see, out of the four graphics, a partial squiggle in the first and fourth, nothing in the second, but I think I can see something in the third, though it definately doesn't look like the number 56 the caption states.

Of course, this would almost suggest that I have no color definition at all in my eyes, which is far from the case.
Further on in the article, there's a blurb:

I can see a lot of colors. But when some colors are adjacent, as in the given example of two differing apples, I have trouble.

This is further illustrated in the following screenshot (linked for size). This is a screenshot taken during the prep to take out the Blightcaller back in Dec. The colors are a little washed out due to GIF compression; sorry about that, but a 300k GIF is better than an 800k JPG.

Anyway. here you will find I've marked the previous shot to illustrate what I can see.
Circled in bright white are the things I can see; most nearby players, the cat, player names, and strangely enough that pile of bones off to the left (but then I'd ridden over it when I arrived so I knew what it was). 1, 2, 3 are the approximate locations of our targets - Blightcaller and his dogs - and I was only able to tell where they were by mousing over them and seeing my mouse-over target window appear. When I target them, I can't even see the name or the targetting circle.

Everything else around... is a brown melange of environmental turdism. I can barely see shadows; I can see the highlights on the hill but it's all just a wash of ugly.

And I have similar problems in BRD, MC, and Onyxia's Lair, ST, Orange Maraudon, Swamp of Sorrows, and to a lesser extent, Felwood.

While the above may be a bit of an extreme example, it is nonetheless a functional one that I deal with on a regular basis in games.

EQ2's environments drove me nuts. Immensely. Most dungeons I couldn't work well in - if at all, and a lot of the zones that are brown/gray were a real bear to deal with. And unfortunately... a lot of the zones in EQ2 are just that. In fact, I read somewhere a joke about EQ2 being "the BrownMush game" and found it hit entirely too close to home.

Double in fact, this is one of the two top reasons I have no desire to play Vanguard. The environment looks so... bland.

Anarchy Online was troublesome, but workable in most areas except some of the random dungeons. CoH was workable and in fact a lot of cases very playable, except some of the random cave or sewer dungeons. DDO gave me a little bit of trouble but most of my complaints in that were gameplay.

And unfortunately, it gives me further frustration when viewing the awesome 3D work by the folks here. All too often I find the pieces too dark, removing a lot of the opportunity for various textures or contrasts to help me view the pieces in all their splendor. I'm sure it's pretty, but I can't see it, and I wish I could turn on a lightswitch to enjoy it instead of being frustrated at my handicap.

Lastly, keep in mind this is not a comprehensive listing of what I can see and can't see, because quite often it depends on lighting, context, adjacent colors... And it's also not necessarily representative of other people who experience colorblindness.

But I hope it has helped you understand it a bit better.