I think you misunderstood. The animals don't get turned on/off, the zones get turned on/off. The birds and lizards and unusual trees are always there. But your list will only flash for the viper goose if you have the Birds list.
Ahhh, I've got you now. Yes, that would be fine.
My thought there was in consideration of how dense the animals are in the Age. If theres an animal with a zone every 20 steps, your list will be flashing constantly, which is both counterproductive and just irritating. If you limit the zones which set off the list, then you know when it flashes, it's applicable to the hunt you are doing. I just don't want to be walking through the Age and see that thing blinking at me every 2 seconds. That was kind of what I was getting at...
Heh, I can just see the player walking along, enjoying the croaking frogs, and chirping birds, the gurgle of water, and the solitude of nature when suddenly their cell phone goes off!
My thought there was in consideration of how dense the animals are in the Age. If theres an animal with a zone every 20 steps, your list will be flashing constantly, which is both counterproductive and just irritating. If you limit the zones which set off the list, then you know when it flashes, it's applicable to the hunt you are doing. I just don't want to be walking through the Age and see that thing blinking at me every 2 seconds. That was kind of what I was getting at...
Agreed; my concern with the zones is that assuming the list needs to be flashing in order for a player to be able to check off an animal, what about the cases in which a player can see an animal from a distance, and that distance is sufficiently great that it doesn't set off the flashing and thus the player isn't permitted to check the animal off? I would feel cheated if I actually saw one of the animals I was looking for, but wasn't allowed to check it off just because the animal detector wasn't flashing...
Actually, the flashing bothers me for another reason too, because the alarm changes the nature of the gameplay from walking around trying to spot animals to walking around listening for the beeper to go off. In short, looking around and searching carefully for the animal are rendered unnecessary with the help of the beeper; and then, the best strategy for winning is to cover as much ground as possible by running and listening for the beeper to go off. The game essentially changes from "I spy" and "Where's Waldo" in which the player has to look carefully around, to a marker hunt where a player has to cover a lot of ground but doesn't need to observe his surroundings at all until his KI starts to flash. Imagine doing a "Where's Waldo" book with the help of a little device that beeps whenever Waldo is within one inch of its sensor and you'll understand the change in gameplay. /shrug This doesn't mean the game wouldn't be fun or anything, but it does kind of circumvent a lot of the required mental activity on the part of the player.