First, let me say thanks. The HC mode makes WOW a totally different game, it reminds me of the early time of WOW back to 2005, and I like it very much.
One day when I was looking at the death heat map made by DeathLog addon, I suddenly have this idea that could potentially make HC mode funnier: a new profession – Archaeology. But this time we don’t dig relics in Azeroth, we dig dead players’ bodies and their gold and items.
To make this fun, we can’t just use static data like herb or mining, we should make this dynamical. When a player die, the system can randomly pick one or more equipped items or items in bags as his/her remain and store in the database. Latter other players could dig at a place around where the former player die and could potentially get these items and/or gold with reasonable possibility.
Just like other crafting professions, items dug out from someone’s body should be engraved words “Legacy of [player’s name]”, similar to “Made by [player’s name]”. BOE items should still be tradeable while BOP items are not.
There should be a radar showing player diggable points around them, just like what we have for herbalism and mining. The places where more people die should yield higher possibilities for people to find a diggable point. This can be easily tell from the death heat map. This rule can even apply to dungeons and it somehow can become an incentive for people to adventure on risky places.
One cannot dig immediately after someone die, the whole system should be on top of historical data rather than real time data. This is to avoid unnecessary malicious behaviors.
To make things simpler, all these data should be globally and can be shared across realms.