World of Jewelcraft - Blizzard Talks Jewels And Sockets

The latest issue of the WoW Insider newsletter sheds some sparkly light on the art of Jewelcrafting, as well as the Socketing system from the upcoming World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade expansion. There's no doubt about it that the addition of Blood Elves as a playable race is once again going to boost the population of Azeroth (and sales) my an impressive figure, but it's the new jewelcrafting profession that's really going to expand the gameplay in ways that only hardcore Diablo 2 players could ever imagine.

Details about Jewelcrafting and Socketing are available on the official Burning Crusade website, and there's also an interactive example of how socketing jewels into items will work, and how matching different jewel colors will give a special stat bonus to that item. Here's a short excerpt from the Jewelcrafting page:

"Jewelcrafters learn the art of creating beautiful jewelry and trinkets from metals and rare gems. By processing the raw ore mined from the various deposits and mineral veins, jewelcrafters can extract gems from the ore which they can then use for their craft. Although miners sometimes find gems while gathering ore, jewelcrafters mostly rely on their prospecting skills to get more of the precious stones.

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At higher levels, socketed items and specially cut gems become an important part of an adventurer's "bag of tricks". Both armor and weapons can have sockets. Some socketed items can be found in dungeons, but the expansion will also introduce a lot of new recipes for all the professions, including many recipes that let leatherworkers, blacksmiths, and tailors create socketed items. Socketed items can be of uncommon, rare, or even epic quality. An item's sockets can also have a specific color; if you put a gem of a matching color in each socket, the item will reward you with a special stat bonus beyond the gems' regular effects.

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Another source of cut gems are the expansion's high-level bosses. There are rumors that some of these monsters hold stones with powers beyond those of regular gems, but getting your hands on these jewels might prove to be a most formidable challenge; it seems unlikely that their owners would part with their precious stones willingly."

Blood Elves, Draenei, Jewelcrafters, Sockets, Outland, Flying Mounts, Level 70 cap - yep, it looks like World of Warcraft still has a few... oh, say, decades to go.

P.S. Also this week, the official World of Warcraft community website underwent a complete redesign, "to improve both accessibility and user friendliness". Definitely worth a look.

(N.B. Archive text, links removed)