How do you feel after spending time with archaeology?

Comatose?

I'm someone who can herb for hours. Gathering cloth or volatiles (or in the past, Eternals and Primals) or doing skinning to get items made for a friend? I can do that too. If needed, I can go fishing to fill up what's needed for me, my friends or our guild bank, even if it takes an hour or two (and this is after they made fishing WORSE by putting necessary fish, like Deepsea Sagefish which casters need, in OPEN WATER, which adds a frustrating RNG element and also, doesn't count toward the ONE ACHIEVEMENT I would love for my guild, but that's a whole other rant . . . .).

But I can't do archeology for very long or very often. It bores me to death. Much of the "rewards" are not only NOT worth much, but not even interesting. It's supposed to be archeology, not archeology class, and yet, when we get an item, we get a line drawing and a little bit of text. It would be cool if the items were more interactive or something you could see. (Full color, rotating picture of the item? A cut-scene you could activate of how it was used in its culture maybe?)

While I like the pets and mounts, some of the toys, no matter how cool they are, just take up space in the bag and the effects last for such a short time, they don't seem the hours of effort. (I've only gotten the raptor pet, raptor mount and the dancing dwarves so far . . .) And what good are getting some of the useful items when you don't have any classes that can benefit from them, or classes of the right level? Then they are just useless.

And don't get me started on the Vial of Sands. I have a few Alchemist friends and when they first heard about the "Alchemist mount" they were really excited. How disappointed they were when they realized what it took to get it!! It's far from being an "Alchemist Mount." I bet more gold-buyers have the mount than actual alchemists. (And yest I know . . . most people who bought the item earned the gold legitimately - but so FEW alchemists I know have it). It's exactly how the writer describes it, except that my friends DON'T have the mount yet. Why not make just having the alchemy profession increase your chances of getting a Canopic Jar - or SOMETHING.

I excited to level other professions - and am on top of getting things like cooking done and eventually, fishing. But I just drag my feet on archeology. I think the rewards vs. time spent is part of the problem. When I herb or fish for some time, I come away with many useful items. I can use those and other professions, to help my friends and guildies. What do I get for doing archeology? Mostly junk. At least Blizzard made the sell value higher so that the time spent wasn't as much of a waste. And I do like travelling, but not like this. It's like some boring, long, nightmare tour.

Archeology is not fun. It's not very rewarding (in relation to time spent). It's not exciting. It's repetitive, boring, frustrating. And for alchemists, almost a torture as they have to go through 3 layers of RNG to come up . . .empty and to see others just buy the damn thing on the AH. It is a grind. I don't even know too many lore people getting excited about it. I don't even care about the the associated achievements anymore.

Oh pleeeeese . . . fix archeology so that it's more fun, less grindy, less frustrating and have better or more useful rewards.

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