They better not take out Archaeology, I still haven’t gotten that stupid Troll sword after years and years…
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Wasn’t arch originally a way that blizz would expand on lore that wasn’t central to the expac?
Kind of like how they did with island expeditions? Was never big into arch but I thought it was a neat idea
Just another example of blizzard having waaay to many systems to juggle everytime they want to reinvent the wheel
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Tell me about it. Those two mounts are still evading me.
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RIP RNGesus
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NGL… I dropped Archaeology sometime back. It was fun at first when it came out and I loved certain items you can go for and it made it feel very fun.
Then we lost flying and by the time we could unlock it… It just wasn’t fun to farm up the items that were available and those items weren’t very interesting.
Shadowlands has a ton of lore and Archaeology would’ve been perfect to revamp for it. I’m not sad or upset really, but this is a massive missed opportunity =/
Congratulations, you figured out why they are removing Archaeology!
They might give a different excuse, but this is the real and only reason.
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Wish they would rework Archaeology and make it fun to do. It’s such a pain in the butt and super boring.
Same. Maybe they are reconsidering how it works and will bring it back with an overhaul? I’ve always liked it in theory but found it kind of tedious in practice. If there was a better gimmick than “warmer . . . warmer . . . colder!” it would do a lot towards working on that Professor title I always wanted. I have Assistant Professor but who wants to be an Assistant?
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Maybe I’m in the minority here. But I love archaeology. I love finding the dig sites, and putting together the artifacts and reading the little descriptions of the solved artifacts. It’s one of those little things that gives the game a sense of history, of their being an actual people that lived there, makes it feel like, you know, a world…
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100% agreed
Call me crazy but I’m actually glad there is no new Archaeology in Shadowlands, at least for now. Eventually it would be nice to see some digsites appear though.
I recently completed Warlords of Draenor Archaeology, it took me from 2014 to just a few weeks ago to get every single archaeological piece from Draenor. It was long. It was tedious. It was horrible at times. It was extremely repetitive. I don’t want to do that again for a long time.
I now have every single achievement in the Archaeology Category from every expansion and it feels great to have it completed.
Warlords digsites were far too big and way too much travel time within sites. The digsites need to all be greatly reduced in size, but now that I have that done, I don’t mind anymore.
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I’m really saddened by this. It’s weird little things like first aid and archeology that make the game feel more like an rpg than a lobby game. But I guess we get to keep mobile game features cough follower missions and loose what made this game special. What, don’t you have phones?
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I’d rather they didn’t add Archaeology in if they’re going to make it like BfA. 900-950 is like sticking forks in your eyes. Blizzard, please fire the person who thought it was a good idea for you to only level off GREEN fragment pickups. 100 digsites later, and maybe I’ll be max level, with one new pet and another pet recolor. Yeah, thanks for nothing.
Legion Archaology was fun. The leveling pace was perfect, the lore was interesting, and the random things you could interact with were awesome.
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Archaeology been the most wasted profession they ever created in WoW. Glad they are not wasting time on it in Shadowlands.
its good for experience leveling though.
As much as I like Archaeology, I mean it makes sense. There really isn’t any ‘ancient artifacts’ if the beings who are of the culture are still alive.
It’s the afterlife, there really isn’t any ‘time progression’ in the way of historical artifacts being a thing. Remember these cultures have been around for millennia most likely not changing their culture.
That’s like going to Modern Venice, buying a keychain from a souvenir store, and calling it an artifact.
You make a good point! But I think you’re taking on the perspective of the denizens of Shadowlands, rather than a hero from Azeroth.
Let’s take Revendreth, for example. The Venthyr here clearly have culture and history. A discarded goblet of anima might be utterly meaningless to them, but if I were to somehow document it in a journal? Maybe find a way to bring it back to Azeroth?
Who, there, wouldn’t say that’s an artifact? Archaeology could easily have existed in Shadowlands, I just think they didn’t want to spend the resources in implementing it, so they came up with a lackluster excuse.
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I see your point, that would be pretty sweet. Would be a fun toy to play with.
Though it is a shame, I’m one of the few people who does like Arch in WoW just because I like lore and finding little tidbits…
Or when (or if) they have housing, I’m prepared 
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I too hope Archeology gets a comeback, and for those that don’t see the sense of it:
It doesn’t necessarily need to be old artifacts of the major powers of the denizens of the place, but of the items and cultures referring to them in Azeroth.
One thing that still boggles me at times is how little “current” content there is throughout Azeroth. There’s so much focus on one tiny area that the rest kind of disappears…
But what if there were new things to find in Archeology digs that refer to the Shadowlands? Things that hint at or provide info on people that have peeled into the SLs in the past and could provide insights to the culture or even lead to fun items (or even puzzles)!
I get the desire to continue simplifying the game to make their lives and development easier, but Archeology seems like such a simple little addition to keep going that can have huge impacts on feeding the width and breadth of imagination the game inspires.
I shall continue to be hopeful that Archeology will be squeezed back in at some point. 
Id say make every archeological site spawn in SL zones , add new rewards without any text on them but fitting the theme . Easy solution without actually removing Archeology.
I know i would have also removed archeology from the game , why you might ask ? It’s quite simple , because the playerbase gets infuriated and abuses the LORE argument that any small detail can backfire on them …