archaeology
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EVE Evolved: Archaeology and Hacking in Odyssey
EVE Online's Odyssey expansion is set to land in just over a week's time, kicking off the game's second decade with a focus on exploration, immersion, and resource rebalancing. Developers plan to shake up nullsec by redistributing the value of various moon minerals and buffing player-owned outposts, and lowsec will become a more tempting place to visit with the addition of valuable new tags to asteroid belt NPCs. But what's in it for highsec players? In addition to new navy issue battlecruisers and immersive new jump and death sequences, players from all corners of EVE will find new exploration content in their back yards. A big part of the new exploration system is a complete redesign of the Hacking and Archaeology mini-professions, which have been in EVE for as long as I can remember and have remained relatively unchanged. Odyssey will add new sites for both professions and replace the boring old chance-based system with a new minigame that emphasises co-operation with other players. In this week's EVE Evolved, I look at the history of Hacking and Archaeology in EVE and what the new system brings to the table.
EVE Fanfest 2013 day two: World of Darkness, Odyssey, and EVE Virtual Reality with the Oculus Rift
EVE Online's tenth anniversary Fanfest promised to be its biggest yet, with over 1,400 players packed into Iceland's Harpa convention centre to find out the latest on EVE Online, DUST 514, and World of Darkness. The first day focused mainly on DUST and its link with the EVE universe, but today the focus largely switched back to internet spaceships. There were plenty of roundtable discussions, and the CSM and Alliance panels were as awesome as ever, but it was the EVE Keynote that really blew the crowd away. The day got off to a good start with the highly anticipated World of Darkness talk. Most fans were probably expecting to see more airy game design ideas and another shiny trailer, but this year CCP just came out and put all its cards on the table. We saw that the game is still firmly in pre-production, with much of the previous work going into developing the engine and cool content creation tools and shaders. While I was initially disappointed at the lack of gameplay progress or shiny cinematics, I found this approach of being open and direct with fans very refreshing. As I told WoD art director Thomas Holt, honest beats shiny every time. Read on for a full run-down of the EVE reveals from the second day of EVE's tenth anniversary Fanfest, including in-depth details of the Odyssey expansion's features.
Patch 5.2 PTR: Finding mantid dig sites will be a breeze in 5.2
Archaeology has always been one of those professions that you either love or hate, with little room in between. While the profession as a whole was fairly klonky in Cataclysm, improvements introduced in Mists of Pandaria helped to streamline the process a little for players. The biggest improvement by far was the ability to turn in crated relics from Pandaria in exchange for fragments from any dig site type on Azeroth -- which meant that players no longer had to dig endlessly on Kalimdor, hoping for a Tol'vir dig site to pop up. However, the new treatment of the Archaeology profession apparently doesn't stop there. Patch 5.2 noted that a new section of Archaeology would be added for the mantid, giving players with a penchant for procuring priceless pieces something new to dig for. But as far as we knew, this meant a return to the days of endlessly digging a continent, hoping for one particular variety of dig site to pop up -- which really wasn't an ideal situation at all. It looks like the Lorewalkers have thought ahead with a solution for this already. Wowhead dug up a new item in the 5.2 files called the Mantid Artifact Sonic Locator. This item will let you convert any Pandaria dig site into a mantid site, allowing those that have completed the other sections of Pandaria archaeology to simply get straight to the mantid stuff. The item requires exalted reputation with the Lorewalkers, and stacks to 20, which leads one to believe it disappears upon use. While we don't know the cost of the item, it's likely you're either going to have to pay gold, or more crated artifacts from Pandaria to purchase. Regardless, it's nice to see that the devs are still thinking about both Archaeology and the Lorewalkers as the expansion moves on. Mists of Pandaria is here! The level cap has been raised to 90, many players have returned to Azeroth, and pet battles are taking the world by storm. Keep an eye out for all of the latest news, and check out our comprehensive guide to Mists of Pandaria for everything you'll ever need to know.
World of Warcraft Druid reaches 90 without a kill
Pacifist characters have a pretty colorful history in World of Warcraft, and the latest chapter in their non-violent march to max level has been written by a Tauren Druid named Irenic. Irenic recently reached level 90 in Mists of Pandaria with a grand total of zero creatures killed, 92 total damage done, and one completed quest. "The one quest I got is a new unavoidable quest that is now auto-flagged as complete for all factions. It registered after I hit 86," Irenic explains on WoW's forums. How did he manage it without a single kill? "Since the entrance to Pandaria isn't designed to be entered without questing and killing, I spent all my time doing archaeology and gathering in Kalimdor," Irenic wrote.
A quick guide to archaeology on the Pandarian continent
Archaeology on Pandaria starts out much like you'd expect. At around 525 archaeology, you'll start seeing dig sites appear on Pandaria, 4 of them spread out over the continent. You'll head to each one, start surveying, and get some archaeology fragments. Sometimes, you will get a Pandaren Pottery Shard or Mogu Statue Piece, which serve as the keystone for those race's projects and can be used to solve a piece faster. Things change a little bit when your digging digs up an Ancient Haunt. This is a Sha mob that sometimes spawns when you successfully dig up some fragments. If you kill it, you'll be able to loot more fragments.
Amateur archaeologist finds possible pyramids using Google Earth
While most Google Earth hobbyists are satisfied with a bit of snapping and geotagging, some have far loftier ambitions. Satellite archaeologist Angela Micol thinks she's discovered the locations of some of Egypt's lost pyramids, buried for centuries under the earth, including a three-in-a-line arrangement similar to those on the Giza Plateau. Egyptologists have already confirmed that the secret locations are undiscovered, so now it's down to scientists in the field to determine if it's worth calling the diggers in.
Breakfast Topic: How will you level through Mists of Pandaria?
Back in classic World of Warcraft, leveling typically involved one thing: slaughtering lots and lots of the current enemy du jour. Sure, there were quests and dungeons, but they were few and far between at the higher levels, so you were probably killing lots of something. Since then, the game developers have provided us with an embarassment of riches for gaining that lovely XP. Gathering, archaeology, the dungeon finder, PvP ... Almost anything in the game you do will grant you XP in some form or fashion. In fact, I actually leveled my main toon on Cataclysm's release from 82ish to 85 using nothing but archaeology. (Yes, that was over 200 dig sites, and yes, this was prior to the archaeology hotfixes that made it much easier to level. It suuucked -- but then I was able to get the gold from all the quests I skipped, and it wasn't so bad.) How are you planning to level your characters in Mists of Pandaria? Straight questing? Dungeon running? PvP? Or just a general mix? It's open warfare between Alliance and Horde in Mists of Pandaria, World of Warcraft's next expansion. Jump into five new levels with new talents and class mechanics, try the new monk class, and create a pandaren character to ally with either Horde or Alliance. Look for expansion basics in our Mists FAQ, or dig into our spring press event coverage for more details!
France's ANDRA developing a million-year hard drive, we hope our badly-written blogs live in perpetuity
Us humans have been quick to embrace digital technology for preserving our memories, but we've forgotten that most of our storage won't last for more than a few decades; when a hard drive loses its magnetism or an optical disc rots, it's useless. French nuclear waste manager ANDRA wants to make sure that at least some information can survive even if humanity itself is gone -- a million or more years, to be exact. By using two fused disk platters made from sapphire with data written in a microscope-readable platinum, the agency hopes to have drives that will keep humming along short of a catastrophe. The current technology wouldn't hold reams of data -- about 80,000 minuscule pages' worth on two platters -- but it could be vital for ANDRA, which wants to warn successive generations (and species) of radioactivity that might last for eons. Even if the institution mostly has that pragmatic purpose in mind, though, it's acutely aware of the archeological role these €25,000 ($30,598) drives could serve once leaders settle on the final languages and below-ground locations at an unspecified point in the considerably nearer future. We're just crossing our fingers that our archived internet rants can survive when the inevitable bloody war wipes out humanity and the apes take over. [Image credit: SKB]
Mists of Pandaria Beta: The best Brann Bronzebeard appearance ever
Ordinarily, an appearance by Brann Bronzebeard is a recipe for disaster. The dwarf with a penchant for pursuing the past has a habit of meddling with artifacts and devices that simply shouldn't be touched. And although Brann always seems to set matters straight in the nick of time, it's usually a hassle to get him to that point. Well, Brann's back in Mists of Pandaria, but this time he's not meddling with Titan computers or even out roaming Pandaria. Instead, he's waiting for you in the Lorewalkers area above Mogu'shan Palace, and he's out to make archaeology far less annoying. In Mists of Pandaria, players can collect either pandaren or mogu fragments. More fragments are available per site, and occasionally you'll spawn an Ancient Haunt that will give you even more fragments as well. You can solve the fragments to create various items, including plenty of gray-quality vendor trash -- but you don't want to vendor these items. They also include an on-use effect. When you click the item, you can crate the restored artifact. Each archaeology puzzle you solve will give you a new artifact that you can either vendor or crate. But what's the point of all these crates? Well, that's where Brann steps in. Brann is selling crates of archaeology fragments from every other section of archaeology. You can purchase them for one crated artifact apiece, provided your archaeology level is 600. Want more Tol'vir fragments? Solve puzzles in Pandaria and buy them from Brann. In other words, you can solve puzzles from Azeroth, Northrend, and Outland simply by solving puzzles in Pandaria and purchasing fragments from Brann. Sound good? Well, it gets even better. If you aren't happy with where your dig sites are located in Pandaria, Brann sells an item called the Lorewalker's Map. This will randomize your digsites to new locations. And if you're tired of flying around looking for digsites, you can pick up the Lorewalker's Lodestone, which will teleport you to a random active digsite in Pandaria. Both of these items cost five crated artifacts each, and you can carry up to 20 at a time. Between the speed boosts, the fragment boosts, and now the additional methods of gathering fragments, archaeology in Pandaria is going to be a painless process -- with the added bonus of helping you nab all those rares you're missing from other archaeology areas, too! Check out the gallery for a look at Brann's list of wares. %Gallery-159577% It's open warfare between Alliance and Horde in Mists of Pandaria, World of Warcraft's next expansion. Jump into five new levels with new talents and class mechanics, try the new monk class, and create a pandaren character to ally with either Horde or Alliance. Look for expansion basics in our Mists FAQ, or dig into our spring press event coverage for more details!
Build your lore library with the Lorewalkers
Have you seen shrines and statues with chunks of story throughout the beta lands? They pop with an achievement step completed when you look closer. When you put the whole achievement together, you get the entire short story. Between archaeology items and these shrines throughout Pandaria, there are plenty of lore tidbits to be found. Anne Stickney wished in Know Your Lore for a way in-game to hold on to these stories for later viewing. There is a way, but you have to hit level 90 first to unlock it.
EVE Evolved: Preparing for the Inferno expansion
The Inferno expansion is set to launch on Tuesday May 22nd, promising a complete revamp of EVE Online's war declaration system and a whole host of new modules. If you're in a wardec corp, you'll need to make a few adjustments to the way you operate when the patch goes live. The minimum war fee will increase to 50 million ISK even if you're declaring war on a small corporation, making very small corps less-appealing targets. The fee increases based on the number of members in the target corp, but it doesn't start increasing until around the 130-member mark. If you want to get your money's worth, you'll be best off picking a target corp with 100-150 members or selecting very high-value small targets. Be very wary of wardeccing large alliances after the patch. While the previous war system swung in favour of the attacker, the new system has gone to the opposite extreme. Large corps and alliances are now significantly more costly and dangerous to declare war on, especially as the defender can now call mercenaries into the war at any time. Players have complained that the increasing war costs could be abused by getting all alliance members to add alts to the corp, but this would be a logistical nightmare to apply in practice and would increase fees by only a few hundred million ISK. If alt padding becomes a problem, CCP will undoubtedly step in and revise the fee structure. In this week's EVE Evolved, I look at the new modules and gameplay changes coming in Tuesday's Inferno expansion and give some tips on preparing for the patch.
Improved digsites in Mists of Pandaria archaeology
When I hit the new skill cap in archaeology on beta and achieved Zen Master, someone in my beta guild remarked that 600 skill points in archaeology sounded painful. But it's not -- it's actually better! Archaeology got some buffs in Mists of Pandaria. There are only two new races to worry about, the pandaren and the mogu, and you get nothing but these two on the continent of Pandaria. As usual, players get four random digsites across the entire continent, though it's currently bugging out to three or even two sites only. But Pandaria is so huge, you say. We're restricted to no flying until 90. How can it not be painful?
Mists of Pandaria Beta: New archaeology items
Players with the archaeology profession will get to experience some joy come Mists of Pandaria, according to a new post at MMO-Champion. All of the datamined items are directly related to Pandaria itself and allow us to start piecing together the history of the continent. Pandaria currently is such a new land to all of us that Matt Rossi and Anne Stickney have managed to condense all of the lore we currently know about it into a single post, which is truly an epic feat. The new items introduced through archaeology will help us paint more of a picture of what Pandaria's history was and who the major players were. Items such as the Manacles of Rebellion, Cracked Mogu Runestone, and Petrified Bone Whip are relics of the depraved Mogu Empire, focusing on their love of torture and slavery. The Spear of Xuen and the Standard of Nuzao show us that the pandaren aren't the naive, comic race that some people are assuming; they've fought in and won their own wars. And in classic pandaren fashion, the Empty Keg of Bewmaster Xin Wo Yin and the Twin Steins of Brewfather Quan Tou Kuo highlight the race's love of beer. As it's still beta; things are still subject to change. For one, I'm hoping Blizzard adds in more pandaren lore items. Beyond that, I'd like to see some new on-use vanity items like the Last Relic of Argus, as these datamined items all lack any on-use effects. Finally, I think Blizzard may want to revisit the rarity of some items; the Edicts of the Thunder King make very little sense as a common item when you realize they're essentially the same as finding the stone that holds Hammurabi's Code or the tablets of the Ten Commandments. It's open warfare between Alliance and Horde in Mists of Pandaria, World of Warcraft's next expansion. Jump into five new levels with new talents and class mechanics, try the new monk class, and create a pandaren character to ally with either Horde or Alliance. Look for expansion basics in our Mists FAQ, or dig into our spring press event coverage for more details!
Satellite images reveal 8,000 years of civilization, rooftop pranks
When on the hunt for ancient civilizations, it's not all about Pyramids and monuments. Archaeologists have developed a method of spotting smaller human settlements using spy-satellite photos from the 60s, digital maps and modern multi-spectral images of the planet's surface. The Scientists are looking for "anthrosols" which are left by decayed organic matter and mud-brick buildings. Containing a higher levels of organic matter, anthrosols impart a different texture and appearance to untouched soil, giving it a distinct visual signature. Software is used to spot these visual fingerprints from images over a 50 year period. Data from NASA's Shuttle Radar Topography Mission is also used to determine the volume of the matter, and therefore the likely length of survival of the settlement. To give an idea of how prolific the system is, it's believed to have discovered 14,000 settlement sites in a 23,000 square kilometer area of Syria alone -- none of them Atlantis.
Breakfast Topic: I found a tol'vir rare... oh, no
I'm not kidding you guys. Seriously. I was doing archaeology the other day, flying around happily on the new Heart of the Aspects, listening to some music, when the most amazing thing happened. After solving for a Castle of Sand, I began my tol'vir archaeology ritual of pressing the solve button, closing my eyes, turning around and running out of the room. When I return, hopefully a rare tol'vir artifact will be waiting for me to obsess over. This phenomenon known as the tol'vir rare find is an anomaly. Two quickly made their appearance for me, then vanished, forever leaving me to a storeroom full of Canopic Jars and Sketches of Desert Palaces. It's getting quite full in there. But not this faithful day. This day would be different. Finally, the impossible happened -- another tol'vir rare. I'm freaking out, man. It's the monkey paw! And the worst part about this blessed miracle is that I can't go to sleep until I solve it. Have you ever experienced the pain of the double-edged sword in World of Warcraft? Have you ever been the victim of something lucky that turned into an obsession?
Breakfast Topic: What do you do while you're doing archaeology?
It's no secret that archaeology can be a boring pain in the butt. Archaeology is less of a profession and more like a Profession in which I have spent a long time studying, gotten my degree in, and now dedicate my life's work to. Podcasts are an excellent diversion, but there's something tactile missing. One night while I was out in the Uldum desert, painfully sulking my way from one failure of a dig site to the next, I got a whisper from a fan and reader who just wanted to say hello. "You caught me at the best time, in fact," I told him. "I'm just bored doing archaeology." This became a thing. We got on pretty well. Other people began to send me messages during my archaeology sessions. If you know my name (pretty easy to find me if you look hard enough) and I'm on WoW late, you should say hello. You just might get me right in the middle of archaeology. What do you like to do to pass the time while doing archaeology?
The 7 best suggestions for improving archaeology
Every Thursday, The Overachiever shows you how to work toward those sweet achievement points. Today, we are still searching for the Crawling Claw. Wow. OK, a lot of people care about archaeology, or at least about improving archaeology. Last week's OverAchiever, How archaeology could get a lot worse (and why we hope it won't), spurred a ton of discussion and was kindly linked on the forums as well. Players wrote in with a lot of their own suggestions, criticisms, and comments, and a lot of them were so good that I honestly felt that WoW's most widely despised profession probably merited another look with those in mind.
The OverAchiever: How archaeology could get a lot worse (and why we hope it won't)
Every Thursday, The Overachiever shows you how to work toward those sweet achievement points. Today, we are really, really pissed off that we can't get the Crawling Claw. There are two kinds of people in WoW: people who hate archaeology, and people who really hate archaeology. While it seemed like it was one of the more promising additions to Cataclysm, archaeology just hasn't worked out as well as everyone had hoped. Even the most dedicated lore nerds are guaranteed to wilt in the face of the game's most relentless RNG. Whatever, right? Some experiments work, some don't, and it's ultimately more important that Blizzard's willing to take these risks in the first place. But ever since Mists of Pandaria was announced, I've been worrying more about archaeology's future. As Ghostcrawler once observed, archaeology was designed to be easy to add to, and it's reasonable to expect new races and new items to appear in the future. However, unless something fundamental about its design changes between now and Mists, it's the only profession guaranteed to become an absolute hell as it expands. Why? Because archaeology suffers from two problems: It's too random, and it's not random enough.
Breakfast Topic: Could transmogrification save archaeology?
This Breakfast Topic has been brought to you by Seed, the AOL guest writer program that brings your words to WoW Insider's pages. Ah, archaeology -- a secondary profession with so much potential in theory, and the mind-numbing death of many hours of playtime in reality. I was originally really excited about a global scavenger hunt as a downtime activity, but after skilling it up, I lost interest. Piecing together tons of vendor trash in the hopes of my next find's being a rare became just another grind for items. Now that the Cataclysm expansion is winding down, I've been thinking about where archaeology could grow from here. Certainly there will be more toy-type items and account-bound epic gear to chase after, but what else could this profession bring to the game? It occurred to me that with the coming of the transmogrification feature, digging around Azeroth could be made interesting again. Instead of adding a number of gray-quality artifacts to sell for pocket money, why not have the common finds be transmoggable art pieces? Think gray-quality versions of gear, good only for costume unlocks. What better way to bring old stuff back to the present than by having us literally dig it up? It could work as an avenue to bring back discontinued tier looks (imagine digging in Eastern Plaguelands for pieces of original Naxxramas raid gear) or even open up items that never were before available to players (like a giant totem skin for two-handed maces, so you can look like a tauren warrior from Warcraft III)! Where else do you think archaeology could go? What do you think we could be digging up in the next expansion?
Breakfast Topic: How do you feel after spending time with archaeology?
This Breakfast Topic has been brought to you by Seed, the AOL guest writer program that brings your words to WoW Insider's pages. Right now, I'm taking a break from archaeology. I spent the days between the U.S. holidays of Memorial Day and Labor Day digging from two to six hours, flying up and down Kalimdor, in an attempt to get the Vial of the Sands. I felt someone within my guild should have it. While I had other guild members doing archaeology, they weren't dedicated -- no, the proper term is "crazy" -- enough to spend hours doing this. By the end of August, I didn't care about the items that got me 100 or 200 gold when vendored (Cat Statue with Emerald Eyes and Silver Scroll Case). I just wanted the recipe. Finally, after my fifth canopic jar, there it was. I had all the mats ready, and the day I got it, I could become a dragon. I almost never use the mount. If someone wants a ride, I transform and we go once or twice around town. But as my permanent ride? No. It's too big and awkward for my tastes.
