I will NOT buy this game because

The OP has a very valid point, and I can't believe I see people trying to counter/argue with him about this. What is your goal in debating his issue? You going to talk him into buying the game that way? This game has TONS of audio queues, even Mickey Canter tells you when Bullseye is out and the Annihilator is ready. By making excuses and telling him to basically "Get over it", your only making yourselves and Uber Ent look like the bad guys because they got treated poorly at Uber Ent's forums.

The only point that's really valid, is the assassin audio cue. If that were constantly announced by the player in text or something, the cloak becomes worthless. Because sometimes, the audio cue can pass by some players. Maybe.

A lot of games have colour blind and captioning options. This one does not. It is a matter of making your games accessible for the impaired. There is not much that can be done for the blind, but the problem for the hearing impaired is easily solved by the common practise of captioning. If done smartly it will have little to no improvement over actually hearing the audio cues. Frankly there is no reason for this not to be in the game.

Anyone who calls the assassin's hum "subtle" has another thing coming if you ask me.

how can it be done smartly? turn on captions removes sound? and just because you do not find the sins hum subtle does not mean others do not, i think most people think it is very subtle. However if you put captions for sins hum who out of the non-hearing impaired people would abuse it? everyone who plays to win?

And yes other games might have colour blind mode and captions but they are not tiny companies like uber, who have to allocate their time a lot stricter. Most gamers are not hearing impaired and/or colour blind, which is why maybes this was over looked or simply not a viable way to spend limited time.

I definitely get ambushed by the assassin on a regular basis because I either didn't notice the hum or it only registered a moment too late (if I'm lucky i'll get enough time to spin and take a front-grapple and maybe survive).
If someone could see a visual representation of the hum it'd make spotting the assassin a lot easier. Maybe the pro pros all notice the hum but i certainly get caught out every now and then.

I know someone who plays a certain zombie game (with a number in the title) with captions on just so that he can see when a special infected makes a growl or a noise that he'd miss through normal listening (especially while shooting).

I'm not saying "No captions! Captions baaaaad!" but I am saying be careful with how they're implemented otherwise they could have a knock-on effect.

Solution: Whenever an assassin is within hum range the game presents a text based popup about the stealth assassin.

Not a fan of this. That would be a huge nerf to the assassin - in TF2 for instance, the spy makes an audable, yet subtle, fizzing sound upon de-cloak, but if your opponent is distracted, he'd likely not hear it. Same for this game. A text pop-up would be way too blantant. Though it's a pain in the *** for a very small minority, it's not worth nerf'ing an entire class to cater to a very select few players...

If you mean a popup above the assassin's head then that won't help "hearing" assassins approaching from behind and makes their cloak much less effective.
If you mean text onscreen (say at the bottom of the hud saying "*Assassin cloak hum*") then it makes it more worthwhile for non-hearing-impaired to turn on captions just for this, which means assassins are slightly nerfed by this.

An elegant solution (if such a solution is really possible and practical) is one that all hearing-impaired will be happy with but will also not be a "Must Turn This On" option for everyone else.

Any advantage is an advantage. If I can get the chance to both hear a cue _and_ see it then I'm twice as likely to spot assassins sneaking up on me. This means assassins will need to be rebalanced because they're less effective, followed by flame wars etc...

For all other audio clues in the game i think captioning (or icons or whatever) is fine, but for the assassin's hum I think you'd have to tread very carefully.

I'm playing HL2. I think I hear a noise. Was it a combine suit radio, or a zombie coughing? Let's turn on captions...

Now I am psychic, and can tell when an assassin leaves their spawn and cloaks. As soon as I see that txt popup I can reliably jump 100% of the time, and avoid a grapple.

If they did this, the only reason I would play assassin, is to hide nearby enemies out of sight and cloak repetedly on and off to spam their screen while my teammates engage.

Big nerf. Big nerf. Big.

The point of the cloak is to remain unseen, but the trade-off is that they create a sound that can be detected by a different sense (sight vs. sound). Realism would suggest that the deaf just get screwed by the whole deal, and I have a couple deaf friends that seem to do just fine regardless. I'm not that much of a ****, though. Instead, since this whole thing is essentially thread necromancy, I'll just post what I did last time.

I like Organous' idea.
Just one extra thing to add: If you select to show that little icon then you don't get to hear the hum. This would (most likely) ensure that hearing-able will not use the icon and hearing-impaired will.

I forgot sarcasm doesn't translate well over the internet people >.>

i was almost gonna respond to your "solution" lol

regarding Organous' post, maybe not in the top-left coz that part of the screen is bare and plain and anything that shows up would most likely be noticable. that is a good idea that more thought can be put in and maybe have the icon grow from 1 pixel to a 4 pixel radius max...
or not do it at all, considering the first part of his post

Nah, squigglies appear around your Pros head
"My Assassin sense is tingling!"

A bare top-left would actually be the reason for putting it there. People are certainly paying attention to the other 3 corners. Why not force them to do visual gymnastics?

I asked someone else what they thought of the situation and they came up with an excellent solution: Caption everything but if you turn captioning on _all_ sound is turned off!
I know I wouldn't turn on captioning just to see "assassin shield hum" sometimes. And it's certainly better than no captioning for people who can't hear the sound as is.

Not a bad idea.

i said that ages ago in this thread :/

also i would choose the visual notice over the hum any day.

The visual notice for everything? Because in my suggestion I mean _all_ sound goes away. You use captions for announcements about the moneyball, bot spawns, cloak hum, everything...

I know I wouldn't switch to captioning just to have a better chance at spotting the assassin in that situation.

well i play with no sound anyway cos i prefer to listen to music and you cannot turn the crowd off so it would be better really, just means i would see assassins even easier. But yeah i was on about turn on captions = turn off all sound