History Main / SocketedEquipment

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[[caption-width:350:[-[[http://www.awkwardzombie.com/comic1-060710.php ALL OF THEM.]]-] ]]

In the original concept of the trope as presented by ''{{Diablo}}'', once a gem was in a socket, the match was permanent and that was the end of the story. In combination with the randomly-generated equipment, this meant that every piece of EQ you encountered was completely unique, even ''before'' you socketed it out. It ''also'' meant you lived in fear of socketing a gem and then, on the very next dungeon crawl, uncovering an even better piece of gear that you would've rather saved the gem for. (And SaveScumming doesn't work because equipment is randomly generated--hell, sometimes the ''dungeons'' are randomly generated--and there's no guarantee you'll find that piece of equipment again.)

In the original concept of the trope as presented by ''{{Diablo}}'', once a gem was in a socket, they were not parting ways ever again. In combination with the randomly-generated equipment, this meant that every piece of EQ you encountered was completely unique, even ''before'' you socketed it out. It ''also'' meant had to be careful in choosing what gems go where.

** Gems of secondary colors boost 2 stats, one from each of the primary colors that make it up, but by about half the amount as a primaries that make that color. They can also activate the sockets of either color that make it (Thus 2 Orange gems can give the same stat boost as a red gem and a yellow gem, but can be placed in 2 red slots.)

* Both Fable games have had this. Ironically, most "Legendary" weapons come pre-slotted with enhancements, meaning the perfectly normal sword you found and slapped 6 enhancements on could theoretically (especially in the sequel) be more powerful than either of the Infinity Plus One Swords available. Taken to it's hilarious extreme with the most customizable and powerful weapon in the first game (provided you actually perform the sidequest necessary to find it) is a frying pan.

* DivineDivinity refers to them as "charms". The difference here that the amount of charms you can put on a piece of equipment is determined by your Charms skill, in addition to the "Charm Quality" of the item.

** Blacksmiths can also add slots to gear, the most common one (and only one usable by non blacksmiths) is a belt buckle that adds 1 prismatic socket to any belt

** DivineDivinity refers to them as "charms". The difference here that the amount of charms you can put on a piece of equipment is determined by your Charms skill, in addition to the "Charm Quality" of the item.

** DivineDivinity refers to them as "charms". The difference here that the amount of charms you can put on a piece of equipment is determined by your Charms skill, in addition as the "Charm Quality" of the item.

* ''{{Disgaea}}'' has Specialists, essentially NPCs that live inside items. Once a Specialist is subdued (by going into the [[RandomlyGeneratedLevel Item World]] of that particular item and [[DefeatMeansFriendship beating them up]]), they can be moved around to other items and even combined with other Specialists of the same type to power them up. Every item also has a number of slots to hold Specialists, with 'rare' and 'legendary' items generally having more slots than normal items.

* In KingdomOfLoathing, this is a special property of both the Scratch n' Sniff Sword/Crossbow (comes with the power to summon stickers to put on it) and the Fossilized Necklace (beat up skeletal enemies to get their teeth.

* The ''{{Diablo}}'' series by BlizzardEntertainment, the TropeNamer, and many of its FollowTheLeader clones, such as ''{{Torchlight}}'' and ''{{FATE}}''. The latter two games allow you to destroy either the weapon to retrieve the gems, or smash the gems to re-open the slot, averting the problem of having the RandomNumberGod award you better loot just after you made a gem/socket commitment.

* A non video game example; DungeonsAndDragons 3.5 has a supplement that introduced Augmentation Crystals, magical items that could be attached to your weapons or armor to provide bonuses. The advantage was that you could transfer the crystals to new items when you upgraded your equipment, so even if they weren't very powerful on their own, they never really became obsolete either.

* A free online text-based RPG called Majesty: Heroes of Ardania (a fan production based on the Cyberlore videogame {{Majesty}}: The Fantasy Kingdom Sim) plays this trope absolutely straight, wherein the player can take many pieces of equippment to a "socket carver" to have sockets carved into his equippment. He may then magical artifacts called "Dwarvern beard rings" into those sockets.

* A free online text-based RPG called Majesty: Heroes of Ardania (a fan production based on the Cyberlore videogame {{Majesty}} plays this trope absolutely straight, wherein the player can take many pieces of equippment to a "socket carver" to have sockets carved into his equippment. He may then magical artifacts called "Dwarvern beard rings" into those sockets.

* A free online text-based RPG called Majesty: Heroes of Ardania (a fan production based on the Cyberlore videogame {{Majesty Majesty}} plays this trope absolutely straight, wherein the player can take many pieces of equippment to a "socket carver" to have sockets carved into his equippment. He may then magical artifacts called "Dwarvern beard rings" into those sockets.

* A free online text-based RPG called Majesty: Heroes of Ardania (a fan production based on the Cyberlore videogame {{Majesty Majesty: The Fantasy Kingdom Sim}} plays this trope absolutely straight, wherein the player can take many pieces of equippment to a "socket carver" to have sockets carved into his equippment. He may then magical artifacts called "Dwarvern beard rings" into those sockets.

* A free online text-based RPG called Majesty: Heroes of Ardania (a fan production based on the Cyberlore videogame [[Majesty Majesty: The Fantasy Kingdom Sim]] plays this trope absolutely straight, wherein the player can take many pieces of equippment to a "socket carver" to have sockets carved into his equippment. He may then magical artifacts called "Dwarvern beard rings" into those sockets.

* A free online text-based RPG called Majesty: Heroes of Ardania (a fan production based on the Cyberlore videogame [[Majesty Majesty: The Fantasy Kingdom Sim]] plays this trope absolutely straight, wherein the player can take many pieces of equippment to a "socket carver" to have sockets carved into his equippment. He may then magical artifacts called "Dwarvern beard rings" into those sockets.

* The free online text-based RPG Majesty: Heroes of Ardania (a fan production based on the Cyberlore videogame [[Majesty Majesty: The Fantasy Kingdom Sim]] plays this trope absolutely straight, wherein the player can take many pieces of equippment to a "socket carver" to have sockets carved into his equippment. He may then magical artifacts called "Dwarvern beard rings" into those sockets.

* ''RagnarokOnline'' has slots in weapons and equipment for cards, which are rare drops from monsters.

* The free online text-based RPG Majesty: Heroes of Ardania (a fan production based on the Cyberlore videogame [[MajestyTheFantasyKingdomSim Majesty: The Fantasy Kingdom Sim]] plays this trope absolutely straight, wherein the player can take many pieces of equippment to a "socket carver" to have sockets carved into his equippment. He may then magical artifacts called "Dwarvern beard rings" into those sockets.

* ''RagnarokOnline'' has slots in weapons and equipment for cards, which are rare drops from monsters.

Generally, you are not allowed to design the GreenRocks either; instead, you GottaCatchEmAll. The result is a modular customization scheme in which you can create weapons with any combination of pre-determined qualities you desire. In general, the containing game will play this up by allowing its RandomNumberGod to design all equipment on the spot, so that you can't control an item's sockets, style (IE sword vs spear vs etc) or pre-existing enchantments, and instead have to spend a lot of time adventuring (or SaveScumming) in the hopes of finding that perfect piece of gear. This is BetterThanItSounds—or, at least, more ''effective'' than it sounds—as a time sink.

** Meta Gems are speical and only found on "Head" slot items. They require diffrent conbonations of gems in other sockets before they can be used but provide different kinds of stats. Also Prismatic Gems and Slots can fulfill/ be fulfilled by, any gem color.
** Depending on the cut, color and type of gem/quality, the stats will differ. All red gems have the same dozen cuts, that other colors can't be cut into, but the better the gem, the more the stats increase.
** Also, while gems cannot be removed from slots, they can be replaced by a different one. The original one destroyed however.

* ''{{World of Warcraft}}'', also by Blizzard introduced such items in the first Expansion pack. Sockets come in three different colours (Red, Yellow and Blue) (plus Meta Gems and Pismatic Slots), gems come in 3 primary and 3 secondary colours (Red, Yellow, Blue, Orange, Green and Purple, as well as Prismatic) and you get a bonus for matching up the colours. Gems can be either found or cut by Jewelcrafters. The best Gems can also only be used by Jewelcrafters. Uncut gems cannot be placed in sockets.

* ''{{World of Warcraft}}'' introduced such items in the first Expansion pack. Sockets come in three different colours (plus Meta Gems), gems come in 3 primary and 3 secondary colours, and you get a bonus for matching up the colours. Jewelcrafters can also cut the gems to provide additional bonuses.

* RagnarokOnline has slots in weapons and equipment for cards, which are rare drops from monsters.

* ''{{World of Warcraft}}'' introduced such items in the first Expansion pack. Sockets come in three different colours (plus Meta Gems) and you get a bonus for matching up the colours. Jewelcrafters can also cut the gems to provide additional bonuses.