Glyphscape/Overview

What is Glyphscape?
Glyphscape is browser-playable massive multiplayer online role-playing game created by Abcxyzzzz*. It has two versions: one played through a web browser with low graphics (comparable to that of Runescape Beta), with a variety of low-end graphics settings; and a downloadable package for a superior experience with high-end graphics comparable to the settings of the best modern PC games. There is a free-to-play (f2p) version that allows players to play with all skills, and most abilities in each skill, but a very substantially limited world, and a pay-to-play (p2p) version with a monthly membership fee somewhat higher than that of Runescape's to compensate for the increased programming and updating complexity of Glyphscape. Players are free to create characters and to transfer their characters to another of the game's many servers, but the terrain map is substantially different on different servers (and changes over time).

Experience: Reduced Grinding
Read main article at Experience.

Due to polling of players of Runescape, it was determined that:


 * Casual players didn't like the insane experience curve (13mil for lv99), which would often take players months of very dedicated play;
 * Giving very few useful rewards to gaining levels felt discouraging to players;
 * Power players thought that they were oftentimes rewarded far too much for not that much effort while leveling up early-game, and then not rewarded nearly enough for going through later levels, as levels in the 90's barely conveyed any new abilities or advantages;
 * Continually increasing experience requirements with each level gave a feeling of impending stagnation and was very discouraging.

Based on these results, Glyphscape was designed with a novel experience requirement schedule that introduced a non-geometric, and yet non-linear experience growth rate with a fluctuating experience requirement. For example, it is easier to get to level 71 than to get to level 70 - it was discovered that this was psychologically easier and more acceptable to players for less memorable level numbers to take less effort, who could easily recall how acutely hard it was to get to the last level and who would sigh at the thought of all future levels being much harder to attain. The experience required to reach level 100 - the new maximum level in RS3 - was also greatly lowered, down to a cool, round 1,000,000 exp.

Character Appearance
In Glyphscape, players can use the middle wheel button to zoom in and out. On both the browser and installed versions, but especially on the latter, zooming in causes more detailed graphics to load. This allows players to see their character decked out in their best gear.

A variety of new features were added to further extend the variety of possible character appearances in the game. Players are now able to combinatorically create their own clothing, including styles, trims, and the full spectrum of colors, allowing for innumerable different possibilities. Now everyone can get the style they've always wanted, with crystal-clear quality. Weapons and armor also have much greater diversity of styles.

Inventory
Players have item slots for all the following:


 * gold
 * head
 * neck
 * upper body
 * lower body
 * hands (pair of gloves)
 * feet
 * waist (belt or sash)
 * back (cloak or backpack)
 * 2 rings
 * 2 hand item slots (most weapons, shields, and quivers each take up one of these slots; two-handed weapons take up both slots; misc held items take up usually one and rarely both slots; bags take up one slot; chests take up both slots)

Players geared for battle usually will lack the inventory space to pick up much loot. The backpack is the only inventory they'll have. Otherwise, players can put a bag in each hand to effectively have three inventory spaces, and will usually have to put down their bag to do anything (such as crafting). The backpack and each bag can only store stackable, small, or medium-size objects, and only up to 30kg each, which means that players geared for battle usually won't be able to take weapons, shields, and upper/lower body armor pieces since they're large objects. Each of these three slots - backpack and two bags - will have four inventory slots in them. The upshot of all this is that players will not be able to carry too much stuff with them at a time, and won't be able to camp enemies for a ton of loot.

The belt/sash item is also for inventory storage, but these are for small items only. Almost all immediate-use items (ie. potions and casting glyphs) are small, but most items are medium-size and can't be held in the belt/sash.

World
Read main article at World.

The world of Glyphscape is far more extensive. Each tile in Glyphscape is twice as long and wide as a tile in RS2, making them four times as large compared to the size of a player character, for a much more expansive aura. The map's dimensions in number of tiles also increases by 10x in both dimensions, for a map that is 100x as large, with many regions randomly generated across worlds upon initiation so that each world has a slightly different map. Many world features change over time, such as where ores, trees, and fishing spots are located, and where the various assets of settlements are located. Players may now build houses right on one of numerous residential-zoned areas across the worlds, as opposed to the game creating an alternate instance of each player's house, so that in walking from one settlement to another you will be walking past numerous houses owned by individual rich players, so that you can actually show off to others, not just friends, and even when you're not playing!

Region Depletion Feature
The years in review also revealed a troubling trend in Runescape's economy: Deflation. This was due to the game designer's tendency to regularly create new zones that offered higher drop rates of items, but not of gold, since direct gold rewards was seen as less rewarding to players and too simple. Also, as new zones were introduced, players went to new zones instead of old ones since the new zones usually were created with the enticement of faster experience gain.

With this in mind, Glyphscape's experience/loot/reward algorithms were designed to offer rewards at different rates to different players, with a region that a player overworked becoming quickly depleted, but only for that particular player. Areas depleted for a player would take longer to yield items/drops/rewards and doing actions in a region depleted for a player would grant lower rates of experience gain, hence encouraging players to go do things in different regions. The more depleted a region became, the greater these penalties would be, eventually closing on 0% rewards. The depletion zones were set up so that just moving a few tiles would not solve the problem; players would have to go to altogether different parts of the world to avoid a depleted zone. This effect would not be apparent to the player except that vigilant players would pick up on this trend rather quickly. This also partially resolves the botting epidemic of Runescape, as bots do not do well going cross-country and operating in different zones. Over the course of a real-world day, depleted zones would be restored to normal.

Economy
Read main article at Markets.

Glyphscape's economy was modeled to reflect the player economy more faithfully. Stores have no set price, but rather, trade at around the values of one of several server-wide markets, which are like Runescape's Grand Exchange in that they each draw together buyers and sellers from all the worlds. Different markets have different tools at players' disposal, depending on what the market focuses on; for example, the real estate market is considerably different from the commodities market, which is also very different from the goods market. Trade is still an essential and entertaining part of the game.