Baldur's Gate : The Sword Coast Chronicles : NWN2 Persistent World

So they attacked you on sight as you came walking in the shape of a horned devil - in the old days the druids grove would have killed you too, I miss the old days they made sense:
You didn't have to think as much about what you did or said or how you said it and if killing made sense RP-wise then you did not have to go through endless amounts of red tape to do it - you could simply focus on RPing your character. For instance when you saw an orc PC you shot it without warning, when you saw an unmasked drow on the surface you shot it without warning and when you saw any PC in the shape of a horned devil, Nightwalker etc you rightfully assumed it was evil and shot it without warning - atleast the last two RP-options still exists.

That being said I agree that the shapes could use some goodaligned or more neutral aligned choices, a better choice than horned devil and nightwalker though that is currently available would be the golemn atleast their actions usually depend on their masters and hence they may not be as likely to become targets.

As i've said, RPing the first attack is both staying IC and actually giving the otherside a chance to react. Fun for both sides.

Yes and no, it depends on a great many things for instance hypothetically speaking announcing an attack by a person that is invisible or in stealth before it happens seems downright foolish to me as noone would know the arrows of say a stealthed archer came flying before the archer broke stealth and released them.

That being said I do see your point and in a toe to toe scenario such actions would work but what you mention is basically adding the current PvP-rules to this area aswell and the current PvP-rules mainly give the upper hand to fightertypeclasses, if people are close enough to hear and see you draw weapons they are close enough to rush you putting mages and archers at a disadvantage but that is an entirely different discussion.

I don't imply they know ICly. But merely to make sure the player is fully attentive and not transitioning/afk. responses if not aware would be along the lines of. *walks down the road, unaware*

Well a warning need not be given in this respect, as someone else said let them come through and just wait till they move - then you know they've finished transistioning and you can proceed.

That works as well. IT's just my own preferrence of emoted attacks . (I love to describe attacks and such)