 Warhammer Online now works with On Screen Keyboards. That's it. That's the entire story right there. That's "just the facts" as they say but every fact affects someone in some way. The following is a story about how that fact affected me, not as a writer, but as a member of AbleGamers and most importantly as a disabled gamer.
Community
First, let's take a moment to discuss what makes an MMO appealing to a gamer. Why do so many people wish to play a game online as opposed to on a console? The answer can be summed up into one word: community. We play games online because we enjoy playing with other people. We enjoy laughing, joking, sharing, crying, and having fun with other gamers experiencing the same things that we are at the same time. We can find friendship, drama, affection, and yes, even love in online communities.
Now imagine, if you will, getting to go to your favorite foreign island. The sand and sun are beautiful, which makes the settings for some of the greatest memories you'll ever have. After getting the lay of the land, you decide being in a beautiful paradise such as this is just not the same without someone to share it with. You go up to the first person you see and attempt to communicate, except you can't because they don't speak your language. No one around you seems to understand sign language, hand gestures, or any other method of communication you can think of.
Suddenly the Paradise you believed to have found turns into a nightmare full of nothing but frustration.
That is a dramatic representation of what it is like to be in a video game where you cannot communicate. Neuromuscular diseases affect hundreds of thousands of individuals around the world. Many of these individuals, me included, possess the ability to use enough technology to be to play a video game but not fully operate the keyboard. Some of us use the mouse and others use more complicated methods such as voice commands, sip & puff devices, and/or switches to interact with our technology.
Surprisingly, in the beginning, there were very few video games that allowed the use of on-screen keyboards. However, almost every game recognized the different methods that disabled people use to play video games. The combination of those two elements leads to a situation where the ability to play the game may be fully intact but at the same time you are isolated, completely unable to communicate with those around you.
Communication is not necessary to play a video game. I have had many enjoyable experiences playing video games in which I never spoke to anyone. That is not ideal by any means. If anyone wanted to play a game alone, they would not seek to play online.
My Story
 I have personally been blessed in that over my gaming career I had made a few select friends that I was able to share my real-life condition with that accepted me for who I am. These individuals went far beyond being my friends; they were my saviors of sanity, my champions of communication. My friends and I would get onto a voice chat program (Ventrilo, Teamspeak) or we would call each other on the phone. These people allowed me to have companions with which to enjoy a videogame, just like everyone else.
In those games of which I could not communicate, my friends would always quickly come up with some excuse as to why I did not type. One friend would simply tell people that my keyboard was broken, they were playing with me in the same house, and that I would communicate through him. Another simply gave everyone the impression that I was the strong and silent type.
Fortunately, there is something in human nature that makes people believe that if an individual speaks to no one, they are not rude; they are just quiet. This would work out in my favor and to this day, it still does. If I speak no one I am not being rude because no one expects me to talk. If I do not talk to a specific individual, yet I speak to others, that is considered rude. I'm just a shy guy or a strong silent guy as far as the guild or community is concerned.
It is through these individuals that I was able to keep my sanity throughout the years when I play video games that would not work with the on-screen keyboards I needed to use. Sure, it was frustrating and at times I would become very angry that the refuge of the Internet, which I had grown to call home, I was not able to do everything anyone else could.
You see, many disabled people see the computer, moreover the Internet, as a place where they can be "normal." In a video game, you can run, walk, fly, and jump, just like everyone else. The Internet is our secret hideaway where no one needs to know that we are any different from everyone else, we can be anyone. The online world, by its very nature, is free of prejudice and judgmental glares that someone who stands out from the crowd most often endure in their real lives.
As games began to become more advanced, less and less video games could be used with the on-screen keyboards (Online games for a while had the notion that not allowing "windows" play would somehow stop people from cheating). I became very dependent upon playing with the select friends. I could not communicate in order to make new friends in a new game, so I played games that my friends were playing. Not that I'm complaining, if it was not yet readily apparent, I am completely grateful for those that stuck by me when I could not communicate freely in certain video games.
However, there is a reason for the saying to treat new friends like silver but old friends like gold. It's fun to make new friends. It's enjoyable to find different types of friends and to learn from them. So I began finding new ways to get around to being unable to use my on-screen keyboard.
Accessibility
 In a few games, I would copy and paste in order to speak. I would call someone into the room to be able to type for me. In others, I would use voice recognition software back when its accuracy was less than 50%. In games like Dark Ages of Camelot, I would use illegal programs to force the videogame into windowed mode so that I could use my on-screen keyboard.
I became extremely proficient at communicating without being able to type. I even made macros to be able to communicate in one game. Each macro would represent a single word or a small phrase that when strung together could be some semblance of communication. Surprisingly, you can talk to many people with 25 preprogrammed macros. It turns out many of our daily conversations are repetitive and easy to anticipate.
"Hi, how are you?" "Great, you?" "Cool"
Accessibility would eventually become an issue in indirect sort of way. Gamers began to demand the ability to multitask. In order to accomplish multitasking in the most efficient way possible, the game must be able to be windowed. If the game can be windowed, chances are the on-screen keyboard might work.
Slowly but surely, many video games caved into the idea of letting users multitask. Windowed mode began appearing in many games. This was a major victory for anyone needing to use any software, which needs to sit on top of other software. On-screen keyboards and other click technologies depend upon being able to sit on top of the program in which the user is working.
For a while, almost every video game that could be windowed would recognize these programs. It was like a sigh of relief being able to communicate at will; being free from the dependency of relying upon others to do such simple tasks as saying hello to someone..
Whaaaaagh to Disappointment
This is where my story of Warhammer comes into play. I, like many gamers, was waiting with extreme anticipation of the release for Warhammer online. The game had been hyped up to be the next coming of the greatest game ever made. I ordered my copy of the game well in advance of the beta, as such I was allowed into the game during pre-release.
At first, I was excited to see that Warhammer was able to be windowed. I quickly scoured the options to discover the enormous accessibility that had been put into this videogame. The mouse sensitivity could be sent so sensitive that it was too sensitive even for me, which is something that no game has yet to offer because of the limited movement I still possess. There were options for the hearing impaired, for the visually impaired, and the movement impaired. This was amazing!
I brought out my trusty on-screen keyboard and hit enter. Eureka! It worked! I was ecstatic, a fun game with all the accessibility I could ever ask for. That excitement was to be short-lived. I began typing and realized that the letters I clicked were operating shortcuts and not actually going into the chat box to be able to type.
It was disappointing. I immediately told Mark Barlet, AbleGamers Editor-in-Chief, and then posted on the forums about my findings. The findings would go into my story about Warhammer, which would be on the front page the next day.
Overall, I was extremely impressed with the game, yet incredibly saddened that if I was to enjoy this game I would be isolated from the people standing around me as if I was a stranger in a foreign land. My friends who were going to play the game decided not to go through with their purchases of the game and thus, I canceled my copy as well.
Defeat to Victory, an AbleGamers Success Story
 Oblivious to the fact that Mark was trying to communicate with EA Mythic about the problem with on screen keyboards. I went about my video gaming life playing something different. That's what gamers do. We play video games until they no longer suit us and then we move on.
As fate would have it, one of my good friends did decide to buy the game. He talked one of the friends I spoke about earlier and me into purchasing the game to play with him. The game was fun but I have decided that I would only login when they were around because I did not want to play another online video game alone.
A few weeks later, Mark told me that EA Mythic had sent him an e-mail requesting his presence at their headquarters. He said "They think they have fixed the issues with the on-screen keyboards." The skeptic in me replied, "I doubt that." He assured me that they have been working on the issue and to have faith.
The visit to Warhammer's headquarters went as scheduled with the pictures to prove it. When I got online that day, I was immediately dragged into vent where I was told by Mark, "I'm under an NDA, so there are things I cannot tell you." I said "OK. No problem." He said, with a dramatic pause, "but I can tell you... they fixed it!"
I questioned him repeatedly and he reassured me that he had observed eight people throughout the building testing out the on-screen keyboard. To this day, we do not know if that was a show for his benefit. We do know that they took the precious time of the developers to fix an issue for the disabled. And for that I, we, are grateful.
Thoughts
If you have read all the way to this point, I would like to say thank you. I hope you have enjoyed it and maybe learned something from my tales of videogame lows and highs. If there is anything that you should take it out of this article it is that the old adage of being careful what you take for granted is much more than a piece of ancient wisdom. Many of us take for granted everything that we have simply because we have it, whatever "it" may be.
Communication is something that I'm sure many of us take for granted. Take a moment and try to imagine a situation in which you cannot communicate with the people standing in front of you. For someone somewhere playing a video game right now, that is a reality.
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