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[Silencexy]

since the game balance / difficulty apparently is based on the ability to hear monsters, not being able to is highly frustrating

okay, in my case it's just that the workstations at work don't have soundcards, so maybe I should just stop whining..

still, it got me thinking

what if there were an optional (.ini-file-controlled) feature that displayed a short message rather than playing the monster sound
Something like *grunt* (former human)  or *hiss*(cacodemon) in the top message line, maybe even in the approbiate monster colour?

okay, you couldn't tell the direction or distance, but still it would be a great improvement.

or maybe sounds from the left/right could be displayed left/right-aligned in the message line

what do you think? would this in any way be realizable? or even welcomed by anyone but me :-p?

[BDR]

Actually, I think this is a good idea; DoomRL supports sight-impaired functionality, so why not?

[TFoN]

I think direction is less crucial. Sound intensity can be color-coded, leaving monster identification to "sound" type -
*[?]* - former humans/captains
*grunt* - former sergeants/commandos
*shriek* - Lost Souls
*growl* - Demons
*hiss* - Cacos
*whine* - HKs/Barons
*clatter* - Arachs
*menace* - AVs

By these, each is almost identifiable on a first-letter basis. This is unintentional, but seems to me a good idea and should be kept, more or less.

[Silencexy]

hrrm. I just realized that consequently you would have to define dying sounds too, cause that's especially helpful ..

how do you express, say, the cacodemon sound in words? uuuh.. ? *obnoxious-gut-spilling-and-eye-popping* :-p

thats not easy to figure out... 

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TFoN:
for HKs/Barons I'd rather take *scream* other that that I like it, also the color-coded distance

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hmmm, pain elementals make strange sounds.. :-\

[TFoN]

*whine* seems to me more disturbing, and "disturbing" is the best way to describe an odd, suffering moan from such a powerful figure. That would suggest using *moan*, but that's reserved historically to ghosts.

I forgot about Pain Elementals. I'll have to play the game again to really get an idea for this one.

There's no real problem with a dying sound - the normal sound message is used, followed by a "freed soul" message. Giving something more "artistic" sounds good to me, but should be done differently. I'll expand on this in a separate thread.

BTW, all this requires the message log I understand is being implemented. Otherwise, this is getting too crowded to be well followed and understood.

[Silencexy]

oh, sillyme, of course the death already is stated in the message line ..

agreed, message log would probably be needed to keep track,
I understand this feature is already in the make?

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oh, and thanks for the positive feedback and effort!
but maybe we should wait for Kornel to evaluate this request before thoroughly working it out

[Blade]

I think that only problem will be with levels that are full of monsters. Just imagine that you enter CoS, ot The Wall, approximately 1/2 of all mosters there will make sound every turn => message log will fill up very fast => when message log is filled, you need to press 'space' to allow game to write another several messages, that will fill up log, and then you need to press 'space' again. But maybe it's better idea than playing without sound at all.

[Valkeera]

Just a question - how difficult would it be to add the monster sound texts directly to the map, just in eight general directions, and refreshed after every turn? This would eliminate the message overload problem mentioned by Blade.

[TFoN]

I think that if the log is separated into two sections, "regular" and "last turn only" with Ctrl-p and Alt-p respectively (or so), and by making instant-more and text-sounds .ini definable, this shouldn't be a problem at all. Also, if sound intensity is represented the way it seems to be used right now, two Barons won't produce *whine* *whine*, but one *whine* of a "louder" colour.

Just a question - how difficult would it be to add the monster sound texts directly to the map, just in eight general directions, and refreshed after every turn? This would eliminate the message overload problem mentioned by Blade.

I think that if a system like this is implemented, it should be used very carefully to prevent giving away too much information. It's almost Intuition(3), if you know where the sounds are coming from and how loud they are.
In any event, it should probably have one key used for each of the directions in a way similar to a message log, e.g. Ctrl-4 would give all sounds heard this turn from the west, Ctrl-9 would give those from the north-east, etc.
Writing this, I think that if it is implemented well and then used by many, there could be traits augmenting the chars "hearing".

[Silencexy]

hmm, then you would have to press ctrl-# repeatedly in every turn
not even I, bringing up this topic, would do it, I think - it's too complicated

no, somehow you should immediately see the direction, but only if it's left or right, that's sufficient info IMO

[TFoN]

Yeah, I forgot to note that there should be a visual que whenever a sound comes from a certain direction. One symbol on each side and corner of the map, that appears/changes colour whenever it's relevant. This would work better if the game screen were more like in Dungeon Crawl, where you're always at the center, but should be fine here too.

Having it only note left or right will fit the way things seem to work right now with the speakers, but as I had said, this could change if this is made a more central aspect of gameplay.

[Supernaut]

But normally you only hear one monster at a time?

[TFoN]

Are you sure...? That doesn't make sense to me. I'll have to check this for myself.

[Supernaut]

Are you sure...? That doesn't make sense to me. I'll have to check this for myself.

Not sure :/ . But I think that when moving around you hear one monster voice at a time (at one turn). I'll check it out.

[Styro]

How about if the above ideas are combined. If you put characters representing the sounds of different enemies on the four sides of the screen, using different colors for intensity (could represent distance and/or number), that would probably work. These characters would be displayed or changed anytime a sound would be played normally. The sound messages would be more thematic, but they would clog up the messages system, I think. This way, a quick glance at the sides, top, and bottom would give you the same information that you would get from hearing the sounds - general direction and proximity.