Guild Wars 2

Archaeology is an idea for a new system that would span across three distinct areas (gather, puzzle, and reward). It is meant to serve as a platform to deliver lore for less popular events in Tyrian history. When it is all said and done, the following elements would be added to the game;

• new gathering tool
• new gathering locations types
• new collections panel
• new puzzle system
• new permanent addition to all Home instances
• new stylized cutscenes
• new achievements
• new title

In order to explain the full scope of this idea, I will walk you through it as a player would go through the process.

Gathering
Players are going to need new gathering tools, a trowel and brush. Even though they are technically separate tools, they would be packaged as one tool in the equipment panel. Just like other gathering equipment, no set of tools is built equal. Some tools will only be usable on “easier” dig locations, some will have an increased chance to yield additional resources, etc.

Equipped with the proper gathering equipment, the player can now seek out a dig sites around Tyria. As any archaeologist would tell you, the best places to dig are places with historical significance (Dwarven Ruins, all of Orr, submerged Lion’s Arch, etc). When players come across said dig sites, they can activate the gathering just as they would and other gathering node. What they receive will be a bit different though.

Players will be searching for puzzle pieces from these archaeology nodes. In addition to puzzle pieces, random crafting materials can also be obtained from dig sites (bone shards, gems, metals, etc.). Given that there is no need for duplicate puzzle pieces (i.e. historical evidence), each player will only ever receive a given piece once. This will require a randomization system of a set number of pieces to be assigned to each player and dig site.

Puzzle
As players collect their puzzle pieces, they can begin putting the puzzle together. Players will be able to travel to a Home instance to find that Culture’s Representative of the Tyria Historical Society (example name). Next to the given culture’s representative, will be a workstation where players can begin putting the puzzle together. From the workstation players will see a list of the various historical accounts they have collected artifacts (puzzle pieces) for. When they select a given historical account, it will bring up the puzzle specific to it.

Players will then have to figure out where each piece goes. This includes determining the proper rotation of each piece. This puzzle system will obviously need to remember where the player leaves each piece, including the arrangement of the pieces that have not been placed (some puzzlers like to arrange their puzzle pieces according to shape and rotate them in the same orientation). After a player has collected all of the necessary puzzle pieces and arranged them properly, they will unlock the history that those artifacts collectively revealed.

• Puzzles could either be jigsaws or tiles.
• As puzzles progress in complexity, they will simply have more individual pieces.

Reward
Each completed puzzle will unlock a historical account that will be told by the Cultural Representative to the Tyria Historical Society (depending on which Home Instance a player is in). Regardless of which home instance a player is in, each puzzle will yield the same cutscene that will play as the given Cultural Representative narrates. These cutscenes and narrations will always be available from Cultural Representatives in the Home Instances.

Of course there will be achievements associated with the new system, as well as titles. However, as this system can be built upon indefinitely after its implementation, achievements and titles should be created with this understanding. They should be created to be acquired after x number of completions; e.g. 6/6 puzzles will grant an achievement and title, but after a year an additional achievement and title could be created, as there would then be 12 puzzles in total.

• This system will be similar to crafting systems, in that progression and rewards are Soulbound.

I love the idea of adding an archaeology system in gw2 i have already some months ago posted my idea in the French forum so i will add to your topic some of my idea which can be complementary, feel free to add some of them to your project.

In my view it will be very nice to get a new panel option in the character panel, like for personal story but for story of Tyria like a kind of “codex, encyclopedia of Tyria”. By going to specific places or finding objects, for example the Temple of Age (and other place of gw1 for example) you will unlock a entry in your encyclopedia which will give you some background about this place. This can be done also for interest point (not sure about the english translation) on the map. This will add an interest to the exploration.

Or instead of getting a new panel option to get a book (from an historien for example) where we will unlock entry. For example in Gw1 it was possible to get book and to complete them by finishing the main story.

It can be interesting to get entry by doing somes quest related to historian pnj, we escorte a lot of them in their research, it could be interested to keep trace of the information they give to us.

By collecting the information (or your puzzle) it could be nice to get some thing like a tresor hunt with skin item to get a the end. In gw1 something similar to this was the way to get the mini pet black moa (you have to get a book from a pnj then thanks to the hints inside find some specific objets around the world, go to a specific place and do something specific to unlock the mini pet). It will be very nice to have something like this with archaeology.

I love the idea of gathering object we could put in our personal instance (housing?), by collecting your “puzzle piece” we could recreate original objet, or treasure map?

When they were speaking about a way to give us access to precursor i was expecting something like archaeology to gather lot of hint with a very long quest and to find at the end the precursor, the weapon will them be really legendary, but they decide to make them craftable. Maybe instead we could have access to specific skin (“old armor” …)

I’m absolutely for a system that rewards players with ingame lore. Personally I loved the profession: Archeology in WoW, it was fun and there were also great rewards (minis, mounts, ancient weapons, etc. etc. – everything with nice lore added)

Your idea would look like a step back from that to me, to be honest. I like the implementation of the puzzle-aspect though. Gathering and rewards not so much.

Some spontaneous ideas from me trying to be a bit constructive:

• finding digsites could be designed like a scavenger hunt. You buy a novice-codex for dwarfen history. Once you’ve “consumed” the codex you get a new UI-element for that book (because we don’t need more items in our inventory). Here you have a bit of text and artwork about dwarfen lore.

Most important: descriptions to the locations of digsites (but more like a riddle). Because of the fact that you’re in posession of that codex you can now dig at those locations.

• Each piece of the puzzle (e.g. novice dwarfen puzzle) is a part of one page of the codex. That way you have access from anywhere in the world. Some pages/puzzles unlock new lore texts, new artworks, but even recipes for your other crafting professions. You might unlock a recipe for an ancient dwarfen hammer skin or an old Norn costume (GW1 armor skin).

• completing a whole codex (novice, apprentice, master) unlocks the ultimate reward: you unlock a bonus mission (single player) which let’s you relive a long forgotten tale. (e.g. play as Jora and hunt down the Svanir). Similar to the bonus mission pack in GW1.

lanthalas.7695:

By going to specific places or finding objects, for example the Temple of Age (and other place of gw1 for example) you will unlock a entry in your encyclopedia which will give you some background about this place.

this is even better than the riddle-like scavenger hunt I had in mind. Buy the dwarfen codex and try to find dwarfen ruins by yourself. Once you’ve found one you unlock an entry in the codex with a bit of lore (for starters) and now you also have a digsite for the puzzle-pieces.

Ideas could also be merged: the newfound digsite bears writings in a different language and you have to translate it to find hints for new digsites. The writings can only be read when you’ve got the codex.

Edit: to make the discovery a conscious one, the ruins can only be discovered as an entry in the codex if you’re actively looking for the right section. (In the codex there is a small bookmark which you can set on any of the pages (dwarfen ruins, tengu ruins,…). Only when the bookmark is set on dwarfen ruins, an entry on dwarfen ruins will be unlocked in the codex when you’re nearby.

Interesting idea, one that I would have never thought about before.

If this were ever to be implemented I would like to see it be all random per character. That means that the locations for your “archaeological dig sites” would be in a different location for every person in the game.

All the events and find this or that that Anet adds with the Living Story has, so far, been in set locations for every player in the game. Thus, many players (including me) look up guides and just run and waypoint to those locations to get the items as fast and efficiently as humanly possible. There is no more searching and exploring involved. Even though I do this I feel it takes something out of the game. I feel like I am just a machine or robot going from point A to B to C and so on with zero thought to the environment. My thought is I have already seen it all so there is nothing new here, just get in and out a quickly as possible.

By just giving us “clues” to somethings where-abouts, we would have to be more active in finding where the objects are hidden.

I like these ideas. Perhaps instead of each puzzle revealing a cutscene as I originally suggested, the puzzles can be grouped into sets. Building off of what Marcus Greythorne.6843 perhaps each set could contain a apprentice, novice, master level puzzle.

So as you both have suggested, individual puzzles could reward text based lore, ancient recipes, ect. Then, when you finish all of the puzzles in a set, you can unlock a narrated visual history related to that set.

I like the codex in that it provides an additional layer of engagement. A riddle-based scavenger hunt would be fun in itself. My only problem with having a codex, is that it takes a little away from the ability to discover “naturally”. Some of my favorite moments in the game have come when I was not expecting them. But seeing dig-spots on the ground, is not very rewarding of an experience. Perhaps some other clues could be built into the environment. I recently discovered that some locations react to text commands, perhaps when we find a clue we would then have to use a new /investigate or /enquêter command. Although, that might be too much for most players, the codex would be a much better entry into the Archaeology process.

I agree lanthalas.7695, this game needs an encyclopedia, even if we never get Archaeology.

Circling Skies.1872:

If this were ever to be implemented I would like to see it be all random per character. That means that the locations for your “archaeological dig sites” would be in a different location for every person in the game.

I agree that this game must maintain its sense of exploration (i.e. continuously expand upon it). My original thinking on the artifacts though, was that they would need to be found at historically relevant locations. For example, artifacts related to Stone Summit Dwarves would only be found in Stone Summit Ruins.

Perhaps this would not be so much about exploring land, as it would be exploring history through text and the previously suggested history book/encyclopedia.

shauncoates.6874:

My only problem with having a codex, is that it takes a little away from the ability to discover “naturally”. Some of my favorite moments in the game have come when I was not expecting them. But seeing dig-spots on the ground, is not very rewarding of an experience. Perhaps some other clues could be built into the environment.

I was thinking of it more in terms like this:

You explore the area. Suddenly you come along ruins. You look at those and think “hm, this looks like dwarfen ruins”. Now you open the dwarfen-section in your codex and press a “discover dwarfen ruins” button (your character studies the details).

Now you can see some previously hidden details on those ruins in the open world. (glyph-tablet textures pop up, you can see footsteps on the ground which you couldn’t see before, etc.) Some of these might onlock small lore facts in the codex, by just interacting with those. From now on you can explore these new “riddles” and solving those rewards you with a piece of the puzzle.

You only can discover one kind of ruins at a time, so it’s not much use of running around with “discover dwarfen ruins” activated and missing all the other kinds of digsites. It’s up to the player to find ruins in the world and then press the right “discover” button in the codex.

example:

Not only ancient lore can be “captured” like this.

You wander around Southsun Cove. You enter the Karka Lair and find the petrified Karka Queen. You go to the section “Southsun Mysteries” and press the “discover button”. Suddenly you can see some objects in the area which can be interacted with. Interacting with the Queen herself unlocks a lore entry about it’s origins and a piece of artwork. Interacting with all the discoverable objects in that small area unlocks more entries and a piece of the Southsun Puzzle.

This can be done in 12 locations on Southsun Cove (and Lions Arch) – where the Karka attacked. Collect those 12 pieces of the Southsun puzzle and complete it in order to unlock all of the lore behind Southsun Cove (which now can be found in the codex).

This was the “raw lore” – the novice puzzle. It’s the very basic lore. Now you can find other hidden sites with similar mechanics (but maybe more difficult riddles) to unlock the apprentice and master puzzle.

Once you’ve completed all 3 southsun grades you unlock story-missions on SSC – just like the bonus mission packs in GW1. You play as Canach who has a dark mission. You play as Ellen Kiel who tries to hunt down Canach. You play as yourself to replay the battle vs. Canach.

Marcus Greythorne.6843:

You explore the area. Suddenly you come along ruins. You look at those and think “hm, this looks like dwarfen ruins”. Now you open the dwarfen-section in your codex and press a “discover dwarfen ruins” button (your character studies the details).

I see, yes that would definitely add to the sense of exploration, as well as provide a new way to interact with the environment.

I totally agree with you Marcus, it is a very nice idea and combined all the others idea into one. I hope someone one from Anet will read it. It will take some time to do it (if they want to do it) and could be a very nice addon in a futur extension by giving news reasons to explore again all the world.

For the more difficults level it could be nice to get old armor/weapon skin as the final result . They will more be “legendary” by the way to get them than the current legendary since they will have a story but they should be considered as exotic or maybe the new level or rarity ( do not know the translation for “élevé”).

As you said with the example of the queen Karka it could be also possible for easy level quest to find information about the former living story to get the background for people who have miss it (or maybe directly add the summary in the codex, easier to do, if they add a codex). They will not be as difficult and long as the “normal” since they will be a lot of living story and should not take too much time to the developer to add them to the game. But maybe it will no more considered as archeaology since not very old event.