With the release of World of Warcraft’s third expansion, Cataclysm, the game has changed dramatically. The old landscape of Azeroth has been irrevocably altered as a result of 
Deathwing’s explosion back into our world from the elemental realm of Deepholm. Old places we all knew like the backs of our hands from leveling during Vanilla WoW, the Burning Crusades, and Wrath of the Lich King are now fresh content, with great new benefits (flying mounts in the old areas, lots of new flight paths) and new problems for players to figure out.
Along with all these differences, Blizzard introduced a new secondary skill, Archeology. Players are still limited to two main professions to earn in game currency and buff up their characters, but this new skill joins cooking, fishing and first aid as a profession every character can have and learn. So what benefits does archeology deliver to players, to make it worthwhile to level this skill from one to 525?
Well, obviously it gives players something new to do in the game. If, like me, you have played for several years, and gained thousands of achievement points because of exploring the depths of game content, and you now hold an important job in a progression-raiding guild, the game can feel a bit too familiar, even as you level up alternate toons and gear them up through end game content. So, a new thing to do like archeology can offer you a reason to do something new, and explore places more closely than you ever have before. Before working on archeology, how many people knew there was a destroyed Statue of Liberty hidden out in the backwaters of the Eastern Kingdoms?
Another thing about archeology is it gives players new things with which to play. Many serious players become collectors in the game, looking for rare, hard to obtain items for each of your characters. Even though my Orb of Deception holds no combat benefits, but it still holds a place in my bags on my original character, and I still pull it out from time to time in low level areas and bask in my own awesomeness as whispers from newer players pour in asking, ‘Hey, where’d you get that?’ The Druid and Priest Statue Set obtained from archeology is similar; while not nearly as rare as the aforementioned Orb, it also holds no combat benefits, but still catches the eye of players who are unfamiliar with it.
The third thing I want to mention about Archeology is that many of the projects you complete are Battle.net account bound. This means that you get to create some cool items that you can pass on to the alts you will eventually level up. This can be great as you dive into pve content upon leveling that alt to 85. Imagine dinging 85 with your Warrior or Death Knight, and needing to get your average item level up high enough to be able to queue for Heroic dungeons. Being able to immediately equip Zin’rokh, Destroyer of Worlds because you had completed it through your main character’s archeology skill; such an item can go a long way toward getting that 330 level you are required to have to start rocking Heroics.
