First you should go the Palace web site and download the manuals
Next, read them. They will explain most of your questions. If you want answers to definite questions there is a newsgroup where you can ask for technical support. Your questions will be best answered if you are specific. Subscribe to it and read the back posts, all posts ever sent are listed here.
My questions have been answered by the next day, sometimes within minutes.
Don't have music or lots of scripting at the gate to lag people. One small sound file would be nice.
If you MUST have animation keep it minimal, it causes lag in older computers and slow phone lines.
Try to let the gate be a gate, the idea is to have people come in. Too many people hanging around the gate just causes lag. If the gate lags, the visitors will disconnect and you won't see them again.
Don't put plug-ins at the gate. Again, not everyone has the latest and greatest Computer. Plug-ins can freeze the computer and cause re-booting. That person will never come back to your palace. Perhaps the rooms that use shock-wave, etc., could be listed together so those with older computers can stay out of them.
Keep the wave sounds with the command "ON ENTER" at a minimum. Lots of people have limited hard drive space and do not want to fill it up sounds. They just have to go back and delete them periodically. Have the music "ON SELECT" with a warning, like a music note, or use midis instead of waves for music, they take much less space.
Don't make the gate graphics too large of a file size. Make the "gif" a fairly small file. You can do this by limiting the colors.
Don't think that if you have the most rooms of any Palace, that your Palace is the best. Unless the hard drive is very big, no one wants to download your 100 rooms. Remember, except for the large main palace mansion and palace space, Palaces just don't have alot of people visiting them to justify having so many rooms. It is better to have a few rooms that portray an attractive atmosphere.
What kind of palace do you want? Have you surfed around and looked at a bunch? Some are futuristic , some are places to meet friends, some are for children. Some are for singles to flirt in, some have great games like Bablyon 5. My palace is a mystery you have to solve.
Try to be objective about your Gate. First time visitors must be grabbed at that first download. Unless they know you personally or want to see what you have made they will just casually look at the gate. If you can not grab them with something to spur the interest that first time you won't see them again.
Make it attractive and let it be an advertisement for your palace atmosphere. Let it be a taste of what to find inside the rooms.
First go to the Palace Support site and get the Iptscrae manual. Read this manual. Make notes just like you were studying any other subject. Then come back here.
Next go to Oriterry palace site. I can't write instructions any better than she did. This is a great begginers scripting site. In fact, I suggest you print it out and put it in the same notebook as the Iptscrae manual. Try the scripts, do them EXACTLY as written.
Next subscribe to the support.iptscrae newsgroup. Believe me, the folks at Palace are very helpful, but you have to be specific with your questions. Don't post questions like "How do you do scripting?" or "Tell me how to start my palace". You will just be directed to the manuals, so read them first and save everyone's time. Asking questions that show you have tried on your own and have read the manuals, like "I'm having problems getting the prop room to work, here is my script, what did I do wrong?" will get you an answer. You will find that these news groups just are not "chatty", the questions and answers are direct and to the point. You will get answers like, "this was covered many times, read the previous posts". Don't get huffy about it, that's just the way those technical folks are, nothing personal.
The Palace graphics must be gif format if you use Win95 and gif or jpg if you use Mac (so I'm told, never having used a Mac) . The possibility of using jpg files makes me consider getting a Mac. If you are new to graphics and don't understand what I am talking about, don't worry. You will soon.
Gif uses just 256 colors, in Palace they have to be a particular 256 colors or they wont show up at all. All pictures must be converted to this Palace palette, to do this you need a graphics program that lets you load palettes. PhotoShop and PaintShop are the two programs I know about. If there are more the Palace community would like to know, I'm sure. PaintShop is the most affordable, the new PaintShop5 lets you make transparent backgrounds also.
Jpg lets the pictures have 16 million colors, I am not familiar with using this format in Palace, you have to find a Mac user for questions about that.
I think the best Palaces have a theme and original graphics. The worst ones have 50 rooms made of scanned pictures from a home interior decorating magazine. This is a "graphics" chat program, at least try to have the pictures be of something that is interesting to look at. I don't know how many times I have visited a new palace and just deleted all the rooms from my hard drive that very night.
If you don't do your own art work or have a friend that does, you can take pictures with a camera and scan your original photography. Please don't think that 80 rooms with landscapes makes a good palace. Let the pictures reflect your theme, and let there be some continuity from one room to the next. Make a floor plan and think it out. Remember "less is better", too much gets tiresome and boring.
Sounds when used sparingly are a great way to add to the atmosphere of your palace. Use short wave files for sound effects, a creaking door, a bird chirping in a nature scene, water splashing in a pool. Use surprise, don't use them everywhere so your guests start to expect them.
Many people use large wave files as music in rooms, my personal opinion is they take up too much hard drive space and are too short in duration. Wave files do capture all the tracts better than most midis, but if quality is what you want you will still be disappointed. Turn on your stereo if you want real music. I use midi files for music, they are small files and if atmosphere is the objective midis are effective.
Midis can be downloaded just like wave files, it is a scripting trick. The script has been posted many times on palace.support.iptscrae newsgroup so I won't repeat it here.
Keep the Palace Client program and the palace Server in separate folders on your hard drive. Believe me, the server works better that way. One trick is to put your sounds in your server picture file, in fact get rid of that media folder and just have the picture folder in your server program. In order to let the sounds download to your guests you must remove the file extension, that .wav or .mid tag on the file name. If you are using Win95, go into the explorer and rename the files without the extension.
At best the Palace experience sounds are mediocre, it is not really a multimedia program yet. I'm waiting for Palace to update so RealAudio files can be used with streaming. I can think of some possibilities for that time.