ahmed ahmed asked...

Have you heard anything about ghosts being able to go through mountains in WotLK, so they can reach their destinations faster? My friend told me that is what is going to happen, and I hope that it will go live!

Nope, that's not the case, sorry. However, in some zones (Icecrown, Storm Peaks) you get to ride a ghostly gryphon when you're dead, so you can fly to your corpse. Both of those zones have a huge emphasis on mountainside base camps and tall cliffs and places you can only get by flying, so the gryphon is very nice. No running through mountains though.

It's that time of the month again ladies and gentlemen. It's September 1st, so the Consortium are offering up free gems once more. Most of us probably know how this works by now, but if you don't, we're here to help. If you have any reputation above Neutral with the Consortium and aren't Level Worthless (a joke, I promise), Gezhe at Aeris Landing in southwest Nagrand has free gems for you. You can find him just north of that freaky diamond mountain Oshu'gun. Your freebies depend on how high your reputation is with the Consortium.

• Friendly gives you a Gem-Stuffed Envelope. The fact that the gems are tucked in an envelope says, "You are worth so little to us that we threw your gems into the nearest, cheapest container without concern for whether or not your gems would come back out intact."
• Honored gives you an Unmarked Bag of Gems. This says, "We like you enough to give your gems a little more protection, but not enough to let others see that we speak to urchins such as you."
• Revered gives you a Bulging Sack of Gems. The Consortium knows quite well that most denizens of Azeroth and beyond subscribe to the bigger is better mantra. This enormous, bulging sack is most likely full of the worst possible gems you could ever dream of, but at least there's a lot of them!
• Exalted will net you a Bag of Premium Gems. Unfortunately, the Ethereals have only just started learning Common, so occasionally they get their word order confused. It should actually be a 'Premium Bag of Gems.' It's a very nice bag. The gems? Not always so great.

Hey, at least green quality gems are worth something nowadays! Back in my day, we farmed all of that Consortium reputation simply for the privilege of vendoring those gems! You crazy kids and your useful green jewels. Wait, it's still my day, isn't it? Well then, off to Aeris Landing!

Tonight's Wrath of the Lich King beta patch brought us a small batch of new Jewelcrafting recipes. This push included a few trinkets, a new gem cut, and some jewelry that is quite incomplete. Incomplete as in they have no stats, even after crafting them. Oh, and some funky laser pointer things. They don't do anything of substance, but they're laser pointers!

I've heard from more than a few people that the new trinkets are quite a bit underpowered for the level they're supposed to be, and I'm inclined to agree. 100 spell power for 20 seconds every 5 minutes from a trinket at level 80 doesn't impress me much, especially considering its level 70 equivalent, the Living Ruby Serpent. The new trinkets will be greatly improved sooner or later, I'm sure. Personally, I found the new gemcut pretty cool. The Enchanted Tear is flat +6 to all stats in the form of a unique-equipped, any-color gem. Not too bad. I'm willing to bet almost everyone will take advantage of that and use the one they're allowed.

We've stuck pictures of the new recipes (the one with stats at least) in our Wrath of the Lich King Jewelcrafting gallery for your perusal.

Edited an item description for clarity.

The crafting professions may not yet be implemented in the Wrath of the Lich King beta, but we do get to see their mats. I'm not sure how much we can figure out from them. I do, however, really like some of the names, especially for the gems.

It looks like we'll have the same gem system as in BC, with six colors (three primary and three secondary) and one uncommon and one rare gem for each Epic gems have, understandably, not been unveiled yet, and common gems have made no appearance. Here are the names we have:

Once again, it's the first of the month, and that means it's your gem payday from the Consortium! Get your butt out to Aeris Landing and click on Gezhe for your Membership Benefits, which means a package of free gems to help you pimp your new season 3 gear or Zul'Aman epics. Depending on your Consortium reputation level, you get one of the following:

• Friendly: Gem Stuffed Envelope
• Honored: Unmarked Bag of Gems
• Revered: Bulging Sack of Gems
• Exalted: Bag of Premium Gems

I meant to get my rogue up at least to Revered since last month, but alas, real life stepped in, so it's another Unmarked Bag for me. What's your haul for December?

Insider Trader is your weekly inside line on making, selling, buying and using player-made products.

Got empty slots sitting wide open on your gear, simply because researching gem possibilities is so infuriatingly time-consuming and confusing? Get ready to get socketing! Our handy consumer's guide to gems will steer you to savvy selections in no time. While jewelcrafting can sound confusing as all get-out, we've rounded up some convenient tools and handy reference lists that simplify the process of figuring how to slot your gear with gems that work for you.

In The Burning Crusade, Blizzard introduced jewelcrafting and the ability to augment items with gems. Many higher-end items feature sockets designed to be slotted with player-cut gems. A jewelcrafter can cut these gems, which grant your gear additional stat and effect bonuses. What color? What cut? What stats? What about meta gems? You need to figure out what's available, what works best for your gear and how to get your hands on what you need. Let's get to work ...

If you're a jewelcrafter (or just want to find some good gems to stick in your armor-- and who doesn't?), you'll probably find these two little online jewelcrafting applications invaluable.

First off, Xornot's Gem Finder by Xornot of Gorefiend is an awesome little application that lets you browse through all the gems in the game (so far-- I'm not a jewelcrafter, so I don't know if it's completely up-to-date) according to socket color, stat bonuses, crafting or vendoring, and even by name. All of the gems are color coded, and because Xornot is apparently a l33t web coder, everything is Ajaxy smooth. Very cool tool for finding just the right gem for that shiny new epic you just picked up.

Jesta has also created a jewelcrafting tool that may not look quite as shiny as the first one, but in fact goes a little farther-- not only can you browse all the gems in the game (by base gem, color, or class appropriateness), but it looks like eventually, jewelcrafters will be able to log in, list the gems they can make, and even list prices for prospective buyers on the server. It's kind of like a custom online auction house listing for jewelcrafting. Unfortunately, there's no date listed for functionality, and it seems like Jesta is a little too busy working on all kinds of other things to get it up and running, but we'll throw a hug his way and thank him for the great online app.

The 2.1 changes will bring a little more order to the auction house in terms of gems, but until then (and even afterwards), these tools look really useful for both prospectors and their customers.

[ via WoW LJ ]

One of the new puzzles I've had in the Outlands is figuring out just how good that socketed item is. For instance, Chemise of Rebirth without any gems in it is obviously worse than Goldweave Tunic. But what gems are available, and how much might they bump up the Chemise? Enter Vacaloco's complete jewel guide. It purports to be a list of every gem currently in the game, showing in easy-to-read format their color and what stats they give, as well as whether they're crafted, bought, dropped, or PvP rewards. I've had this list open in a browser window constantly for the past few days.

Personally, what I'd like to see is an AddOn or web tool that would do the thinking for me. I want to be able to mouse over an item, or input the number and color of sockets on a web page somewhere, and get back the maximum stat boost, for my chosen type of stats, that I could get out of the item with gems socketed. That would make a lot of comparisons much easier. Unfortunately, I don't know any Lua, nor am I very familiar with WoW's API, so writing that AddOn is probably beyond me.

In any case, Vacaloco's page is a great resource. Have you found any ridiculously useful references for this brave new world?

I'm not sure whether I can classify this one as a rumor, since it doesn't come with the requisite blurry screenshot. And while there's no verification to any of these gem abilities, they're certainly interesting if true -- providing a wide range of small buffs that will be interesting to see in different combinations on items. Blizzard's own jewelcrafting information suggests that items will have a a varying number of sockets and that some sockets will be specific to certain types of gems (you'll get a bonus ability for socketing them with the appropriate type of gem). Read on for the specific gem abilities.