While playing the WOW Catalysm Archaeology profession, you’ll be able to discover ancient treasures thoroughout the world. Look to find troll relics, or decipher the meanings of map fragments to help you manipulate the past and find the artifacts.
WOW Cataclysm takes place in reforged Kalimdor and Eastern Kingdoms. WOW Archaeology is a gathering profession so players can interact with artifacts just like they do with the herbs, ore etc of the other gathering professions. Fortunately, these artifacts will be tracked separately from these others. So for example, a miner – can track both ore nodes and artifact nodes simultaneously. They are also kept in a special “artifact journal” so they won’t take up room in your bags.
This journal allows players to study their artifacts in an attempt to unlock new rewards. Rewards hinted at so far include vanity pets, money and titles. It’s possible, but not confirmed that the journal will include “mini-games” to make studying the findings more interesting.
Unlike other professions, you will not be able to reach a maximum level in Archaeology. Instead, constantly finding and studying artifacts will continue to provide rewards and new discoveries. It stays interesting because you make continuous progress that leads to the ability to make changes to your character, depending on which WOW artifacts you find.
In the mock-up of the interface at Blizzcon, the ability to sell the artifacts for gold at their black-market value is also possible. So far, it seems as though there will be no materials or reagents needed that we can gather and stockpile ahead of time. In fact, it is possible that Archaeology will have little or no impact on the Auction House market at all – a good thing for players with less gold available…
Once a player reaches the level cap of 85, Archaeology becomes even more essential as players begin to follow their chosen Path of the Titans.
Tags: archaeology, archaeology journal, artifacts, path of the titans, WoW Cataclysm