The other way to do it, like I said, is to ditch the text based aspect all together... and just have an RPG with no graphics... where the chat and the battle text go to that same chat window and there is a battle box that appears somewhere to fight in...
Or we could use very weak graphics... and ignore the chat box idea entirely... just have it say things elsewhere.. and let the player look around the area out of battle with commands....
Or we could use very weak graphics... and ignore the chat box idea entirely... just have it say things elsewhere.. and let the player look around the area out of battle with commands....