First off, happy Cataclysm Day! I was so excited about the release that I kept waking up to see what time it was and counting down the minutes until the servers went live. Then went the clock turned 4:00am (ish) I thought, screw this – WoW can wait and went back to sleep.
Until 5:15 am that is.
But where to head first? Mount Hyjal? Vashj'ir? I wasn't in the mood for competing for mobs. But then I remembered one thing I was sort of looking forward to:
Archaeology!
I flew around Kalimdor for almost three hours surveying, digging, and putting together artifacts. It was fun, it wasn’t crowded and I talked with a few very nice people who were excited about the expansion but were glad for the relief from crowded zones.
Archaeology is a side project you can do while you are levelling, exploring zones or waiting for raids/instances to form. The Archaeology trainer in Orgrimmar is in the same building as Garrosh.
In the Professions tab you’ll see two things. The Survey icon and the Archaeology icon which I will refer to later. You can pull both these icons to your toolbar
When you open your map you’ll see some shovel icons around the zones which indicate where dig sites are. They are usually (surprise, surprise) in the same areas at ruins, bones or places of old magical power. Travel to these sites and you will see a highlighted area where you can dig.
Start digging!
Using the survey equipment will point you the right direction and the light beacon will tell you how far away you are from the fragment. If it’s red, go a good distance in the correct direction and then survey again. It will turn yellow when you’re almost there and green when you are sooooo close! When you’ve hit the right spot a little fragment will show up and you collect it as currency.
Cold!
Warm!
WWWWWARRRMERRR!!!
You're burning up! You're in the desert!!!!...oh you found it.
Where did my archaeology fragment go to?
That’s what I kept asking myself since I couldn't find any evidence I had collected anything. It wasn't under the currency tab (even though it's called Currency)and it wasn't in my inventory. Lo and behold, it’s located in your Archaeology tab! Yay! Click on the Archaeology icon and you can see what types of artifacts you have collected so far and how many fragments you need to complete one.
The second tab shows you what you have already completed. I managed to complete two Night Elf relics during my morning excavation.
You can only collect three relics in one dig site before it disappears. However, as soon as you finish one site another will spawn in another area or zone. So there will be a lot of traveling if you plan to dedicate some time to it but with Azeroth flying and all the new flight paths getting around is fairly easy.
One of the biggest pluses of the profession is that you are not in competition with other players. It’s not like a node or herb or something else people to lose their mind over. After you dig up three artifacts the site despawns and you go on your way even if there are other people doing the same thing. You don’t take anyone’s precious loot and they can’t take yours. Happy times all around.
It’s not a very fast process, mind you. You aren't going to run around like Indiana Jones, cracking whips, and choosing grails but really, who wants to be anything like Indiana Jones after that last abomination of a movie. Aliens and ancient ruins? I was offended both as a fan and as an anthropology major. Warcraft Archaeology is more akin to fishing where you do it here and there until it becomes an obsession and takes over your life until you get every last achievement.
Happy digging!
