All 5 people who still participate in Archaeology, unite!
Why is it that this expansion, which is almost entirely focused about uncovering the secrets of an ancient civilization, DOESN’T include Archaeology? This is one of the biggest wastes of potential of all time, second only to the depreciated Glyph system.
I do not want to to M+, I want to dig the dirt!
I am a DWARF! I literally have a RACIAL that makes me BETTER at ARCHAEOLOGY! But I NEVER GET TO USE IT 
I’m going to make a guess here. Their internal data probably shows that not a lot of people use actually use archaeology, so they abandoned it.
The same reason class glyphs/green fire type quests aren’t expanded upon I presume.
I can’t tell you that reason though. I doubt Blizzard could either. There aren’t any that involve any level of logic whatsoever. 
I have my doubts that they pay attention to any data that isn’t raid-related. Qualitative data also tends to not exist in their world (if it did, we wouldn’t have things like Malefic Rapture in the game).
Same reason why first aid was dropped post legion, no one really used or engaged with it. So they chopped it to supposedly focus on other things, what those things are I have no clue XD.
Because archaeology is awful. It’s just one half-baked idea piled onto another in an attempt to make up for the fact that the underlying system isn’t any fun.
Good news! You can literally do that as a Dragonscale Expedition activity.
I do not want to follow the Expedition around, I want to dig the dirt on my own schedule.
Its a failed system and will likely be left as is or reworked it won’t return till then.
Because all the primary professions were completely reworked.
Good point! I don’t use Archaeology, but I would like it if they kept up with the stuff they gave us and add to it.
Garrisons could be player housing by now with infinite possibilities as an example.
The team decided it was lacking and attempted alternatives with the Archivists’ Codex and Dragonscale Expedition.
Even the major professions are going through an experiment with the Artisan’s Consortium.
Sometimes I worry about how they interpret internal data… I mean, maybe the answer isn’t to just drop archeology altogether but rather to polish it up and add better incentives. You know, a sprinkling of cool new rewards and double dash of fun.
I feel like they make things tedious and unrewarding on purpose and then claim nobody wants to do them…
Because…
Because how could this company even afford to work on the profession they made!
They’d have to make like 7 dig sites per zone and a whole like 40 artifact names
That’s way more money then they have available
It’s a common thing that I get the impression they do. They don’t dig into causality and instead take data for face-value, rather than asking “Why is this the situation?”.
That or they look at the data and then spitball reasons rather than actually talking to people.
It’s maddening as a UX researcher to see it happen. But like, also morbidly fascinating.
The common answer I see getting used is:
No one was doing it. It’s been around since Cata and something like less than 10% of players have even done any Archaeology stuff, much less a lot of it.
my wife misses this. she hates raiding. she hates m+. she dont mind running the odd regular dungeon if i am tanking for her while leveling or needing some sort of objective but for the most part she has 0 participation in that part of the game.
what she do love is:
and there are so many people in her shoes that are lost because either it got removed or it got gutted so bad you can finish in a few days. I been playing since vanilla and we met around mid cata so she has been playing since then and this is the 1st time i rarely see her on.
← Project manager here! Every time they start brainstorming and pre-proding a patch or whole xpac, they almost certainly weight the opportunity cost of tackling some systems debt like Archaeology alongside all the new ideas and features they’re excited about vs. their schedule and budget.
The problem being, they can’t do everything, and “hire more devs” is not a realistic answer most of the time: dev availability is a finite quantity and new hires get assigned to something higher up the priority chain regardless. Again: opportunity cost.
Archaeology was at its best when it was tied to unique mounts, pets, toys, recipes (hello Sandstone Drake!), and even weekly quests in Legion, but my impression is that if they’re making those, they might as well distribute them into content more players actually partake in. After all, any urn you find with archaeology gimmicks could also be a real clickable urn hidden in the world, or a drop from a rare, or a repeatable rep random chance reward, or an achievement reward for finding the 12 Rainbow Pebbles of Power hidden throughout Waking Shore. In the end, you don’t need Archaeology for Archaeology-style content.
Blizzard gave up on it.
I think you have discovered the answer to your question
I loved archaeology. Maxed it out on my paladin and also got the seeker of knowledge title which was a little bit of a pain to do but I managed. I’m aware not everyone likes it, but it is disappointing that they haven’t done anything new with it.