WoW Market Predictions

Making long-term predictions for virtual economies often proves to be unimaginably difficult, but that isn't enough for me to stop my futile attempts at analyzing the Ore market after the upcoming World of Warcraft Patch.

A few of the changes to consider-

1) Uncut green gems will vendor for less, reducing the profitability of prospecting, which will in turn reduce the number of Rare gems that make it to market.

2) Mining nodes are going to be placed closer to enemies, making mining slower, which will likely reduce the overally supply.

3) Primal Nethers are going to be easier to get, and there is also further incentive to run Heroic instances in new epic gem drops, so the overall supply of Nethers will increase.

4) The Epic BoE crafter weapons are going to require more materials, increasing the deman.

With these facts in mind, I predict that the price of ore will go up.

Now, the standard response to this prediction is that the higher prices will lure more people to the Mining profession, but I don't think it would rise enough to keep prices the same. On my server, everyone and their mother is a miner alread.