Gemstone characteristic that lends value to a gemstone. Apart from jewelry, from earliest antiquity engraved gems and hardstone carvings, such as cups, were major luxury art forms. A gem maker is called a lapidary or gemcutter; a diamond cutter is called a diamantaire. The traditional classification in the West, which goes back to the ancient Greeks, begins with a distinction between "precious" and "semi-precious"; similar distinctions are made in other cultures. In modern use the precious stones are diamond, ruby, sapphire and emerald, with all other gemstones being semi-precious. This distinction reflects the rarity of the respective stones in ancient times,
GemStone IV GemStone IV GemStone IV is a multiplayer text-based online role-playing video game (often known as a MUD) produced by Simutronics. Players control characters in a High Fantasy game world named "Elanthia". The first playable version of the game was known as "GemStone ][" and was launched in April 1988 on GEnie. It was one of the first MMORPGs and is one of the longest running online games still active. Access to the game is subscription-based (monthly fee) through its website, with three additional subscriptions levels available, "Premium," "Platinum," and "Shattered", in addition to a free-to-play model introduced in early March,