I've been thinking about this one. I think it would be great if the game would notify the player that there are off screen characters that, while not seen, are visable or perceptable (esp or infravision) to our character.
One idea is to put symbols on the edge of the screen or somewhere on the screen such as under "Cur SP" that would warn the player that something is off screen.
For example, it seems that there is an unused line on the left, right and bottom edge where arrows could be drawn to notify. Along the bottom edge, this could be drawn:
| 5 |
This would mean that five creatures are off screen below. Or if it's possible to draw an upside down ^ character that would work better than the | ones.
Along the right edge this could be drawn:
\
8
/
Or:
>
8
>
This means that eight monsters are off screen to the right.
Colors could be used as different warning levels. grey might mean that they are percieved but have not noticed us yet. Yellow means they have noticed us and attempting to reach us. Red means they can see us. Blinking red might mean they see us and are firing on us.
Not sure how to implement this for area above the top of the screen except to implement a different system below the "Cur SP" area. I'm not sure this area is unused though. It would look like this:
^2^
<0 ^0^ 9>
In the above example, tthe middle two ^ symbols around the zero would be upside down to denote monsters below the screen. I count twelve spaces for characters and the above example has eleven so it would fit. If ten monsters were below and eleven to the right of the screen. then there would not be enough room but one or two symbols could be removed to make the room.
Another option would be to use the borders, except the above the screen area would be put in the character's race line because the top line is used for chat & regular messages.
Hope this helps!
Bone
Reporting off screen monsters/creatures
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the_sandman
- Thalore
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