HUB - Henry's Universe Builder
         Basic Area and Object Construction Manual

                  NOTES N' HINTS N' STUFF

This file is Copyright 1995-1997 by Henry McDaniel.  All rights
reserved.   See NOTICE for further details.
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BUILDING AREAS

There are three main sorts of areas: Social, Combat and Mixed.
Your area will be one of these three types.   A social area should
have a meeting place where players will get together and socialize.
We suggest placing this spot in the heart of the area.

A combat area should have plenty of NPCs and promotion type objects.
All NPCs in the area should be for players of 2 or 3 different
levels but no more.

A mixed area should simply have a central meeting spot and combat
type NPCs.

NOTE: No need to set any "stat" in an NPC intended for social only areas.
But you still must set energy (and level wouldn't hurt either.)

Any area may have houses (or the equivalent) set aside for special players to
OWN, SELL/TRADE, etc.

Simply create lockable rooms/small areas (of whatever sort) and unique keys
which do not return or decay but can be obtained in some special place but
not too obvious a place.  On the key, describe what it is for and optionally
where it goes to.

Lastly, set the "start" attribute for the room(s) so that a player may
choose to start-in game there.


SUGGESTIONS

1. Try VERY hard not to use "You" or verbs refering to the actions
   of the reader when describing ROOMs and NPCs (it may be necessary
   for some other objects however.)

2. Be sure to describe what should be obvious exits near or at the
   bottom of a room description (or dpoints, if in a sized room)
   Use "North", "South", "East", "West", "Northwest", "Northeast",
   "Southwest", and "Southeast" for compass directions (but use
   the shorter forms like "n" and "ne" in the actual exit mappings!)

3. Try not to be redundant with extra descriptions.  Especially,
   do not use (if possible) the same extras in multiple rooms.  This
   will waste memory needed for use by the game.

   HINT: You can use both an "extra" mapping and extraXX mappings
   in a sized room.  Then the "extra" mapped descriptions can be
   viewed from anywhere within the sized location, but the extraXXs
   only work in the XX point of the room.

4. Try to keep the length of most room descriptions under 7 lines long.
   If a room description is less than 2 lines long, chances are that
   room doesn't belong in the game.


HUB's SIZED ROOMS
1. Try not to use too many sized rooms!  Sized rooms should only be
   used in large open spaces (such as halls, plazas, open fields,
   and etc.)  It would be silly to have (for example) a sized bathroom.
   Sized rooms are also useful in easily constructing long winding
   tunnels, passages, corridors and so on.

   If most of a sized location you are thiniking about building is
   blocked off, consider using smaller rooms (plural) together or a
   smaller sized room to represent it.

2. Don't get bogged down in a 2-dimensional view of the area you are
   building.  Don't hesitate to build up or down, when that seems
   called for.


ABOUT BUILDING OTHER OBJECTS

1. HUB objects exist completely transparent to game shutdowns.  So
   it is imperative to manage the occurence of items within the game.

   Set return time to be at least 2 or 3 hours (120-180 minutes) on
   items you want to be common AND set a decay of something like 
   30 minutes.    This will keep items from accumulating.  Otherwise
   you might end up with nearly EVERY player in the game having one.

   For far less common items, consider a return time in terms of DAYS(!)

2. Don't make more than 2 or 3 copies of any single item.   The
   exception might be things which players cannot get.  Set weight
   to a -1, if you do not want players to be able to take an item.


END OF AREAS.TXT