I think most people are assuming it will happen because the gems have been in the game files since beta.

Make the mats for the ring enchants include an epic gem for each enchant. Make the new JC cuts simply better, BoP versions of the current JC-only gems (like the single gem only versions in BC that were cut using the blue gems), make the fur linings cost 2 gems each, repeat ad infinitum. Simple fix.

Currently all the profession perks only require 400 skill. A second tier of perks could very well happen requiring max skill, similar to what Alchemists got at the tail end of the Burning Crusade with the alchemist stones.

That seems like an incredible amount of work for little gain.

What exactly do epic gems accomplish? We don't need a gem-reset per se. We don't even really need epic gems to drop from raid instances because we have badges, and badges which can be used to buy blue gems.

Blizzard has made blue-quality gems mind-numblingly easy and cheap to acquire. They made sure to drive down the prices of epic-quality gems in TBC as well.

In TBC gems and gem-quality as a whole was new. It seems to be epic-gems were added in TBC to fix mistakes or correct problems, and they may not be added at all in WotLK.

I'm with this. A lot of gearing paradigms changed between Vanilla and BC. The changes between BC and WotLK have been more a matter of scale, but item budgeting seems to have come under a finer focus. In particular, items of the same ilvl with sockets [and a socket bonus] seem to be designed more for customizability rather than straight superiority. Pulling a theoretical example off the top of my head [and experience], a socketed melee DPS weapon could benefit a Death Knight better than an unsocketed one even without a socket bonus just because of the ability to pump an extra 16 strength out of the item than a non-socketed equivalent, or the difference between 16 strength and 32 attack power [or crit, or haste, etc.]. If, however, the gem's itemization is pulled from the weapon's strength, it becomes a break even proposition. Similarly, allowing a choice of spirit or spellpower itemization on healer items. The addition of epic gems in BC was an intentional boost of item value and raiding preperation: items socketed with epic gems were simply better than socketless items of the same item level.

Basically, the addition of epic gems, beyond the affect on profession benefits and the addition or equalization it would require, would affect gear the same way as in BC. Socketed items would become hands-down superior except in specific instances instead of one of the options. It would certainly streamline BiS and item-priority lists, but I prefer the design where if you find a well or 'perfectly' itemized item without sockets, you don't replace it the second you get an ok-itemized item with a socket or two. The alternative would be to redesign weapon budgets around the assumption of an epic gem in the socket to equalize...while possible, it seems like more trouble than it's worth.

So, in the one sense it's pointless. In another sense it's just the next tier of profession benefits for the next or Icecrown tier of raiding to introduce profession benefits at a higher level [such as 450]. Personally, I'd prefer it just be left alone.

I created this Inscription calculator spreadsheet to help me gauge the cost per finished ink and glyph when buying herbs on the auction house. Others might find it useful, so I cleaned my original version up and made it public.

It also features reselling calculations and offhand crafting calculations, based on the going price of ink and other materials on the AH.

The herb order might seem random, but they're listed in the same order as they appear in Panda by Tekkub as I use that one to do my milling.

TBC originally needed epic gems because epic gear had epic-gem budget for their sockets. This is why socketed gear had to be adjusted. There's a post (from Tigole I believe?) admitting to their mistake. Of course, epic gems were already in the game. Hyjal was in at release, remember. So Blizzard adjusted the cost of sockets in their ilvl formula, and socketed items became very good.

Also, as said in the other post above, the gem budget in WotLK seems to be far more balanced. Adding epic gems make socketed-items no-brainer items over unsocketed items. Sockets should be about flexibility, they shouldn't be purely better.

A subtle point I was alluding too, we could make the argument the epic-gem was a small perk for the people who were doing T6 content, but now people who can do Icecrown will have Icecrown BoE's as their perk, and Icecrown-only Badges.

So Tier 5 gear, which was misbudgeted due to sockets, had to be fixed by epic gems, which weren't made available until Tier 6, well after that gear was buffed via hotfix? That's your theory? And you back it up with "Hyjal was in at release" - and all of that is why we should believe epic gems will not exist this expansion. Mmmhmmm. Sounds plausible to me!

It's not a theory at all. Blue posts clearly state green items with sockets were budgeted with green gems in mind, blue items with blue gems and purple items with purple gems. This is obviously flawed, but hey.

Can we get a mod in here to tell everyone to shut up about epic gems speculation and get back on topic about money-making?

EDIT: and just to kick things off again: I've recently started on a new server (with an old lvl 70 though) with 50g. This has so far been really fun, to try to start up the empire again. I chose Enchanting as my money-making profession as I feel most comfortable with that. What would people recommend as an investment light method for starting up (cornering the market for Nobles Decks is not really an option...)?

Mining. Old world ores are relatively easy to come by, but do sell for quite a bit. Mithril is abundant in Alterac Mountains and Winterspring has a nice route for Thorium.

Can always drop it once you've got a starting capital.

From my limited experience, yes, they will. Supply will drop when the next round of mass bannings comes, but it will pick up again in a month or so.

If the value of those items is truly much higher than their current price, it's a long term gain to pick up some stock and sit on it. Storage space is infinite (and cheap) if you put the time into mailbox rotations more than once a month. If the long term value of those items is close to what is currently being asked, then don't bother. Even if you look far enough ahead to the release of the next hero class/expansion where people will reroll/powerlevel, there will be an opportunity to exploit this for gain. The cost of 30 copper per stack plus 15 minutes a month is easily absorbed in a 5-600% markup.

Farmers don't generally camp AH 24x7. They often only list item in 8 hours or 12 hours interval when they change shift. There are many windows of opportunity for you to resell those items at a high mark up.

This isn't always true, there appears to be a fairly annoying operator on our server that makes it a pain to sell in the common farm markets. Seems like it's multiple people working together, but the AH mule logs in like clock work every15 minutes just about 24-7, every 10 minutes during prime time, and reposts everything that has been under cut, honestly with how methodical it is I suspect it's a bot, but it's still around after multiple reports from myself and various other AH players. And given the volumes of stuff he posts seems like there must be multiple farmers backing the mule. And the couple of times where markets have gotten really thin and I've bought everything out and reposted 40%-50% higher the mule will post nearly at the previously low level. I've even tried talking with it with no response, but one time I was bored and working on some rotational stuff on a practice dummy I macroed in a msg to trade chat that the toon was a gold farmer and not to buy stuff from it every time I hit pyro for a hot streak. After about 15 minutes another toon in its 5 person guild, which has an amazing number of 40-50 toons that some how got there wearing almost nothing, started sending me tells in broken English asking me to stop, then saying things that when google showed up on sites in Cantonese.

If anyone has tips on how to really get Blizzard's attention on this guy, wether gathering proof or how to get them to focus on him, would appreciate it since hes sucked so much profit out of the market.

I've had success with using botters' algorithms against them. If you can see a pattern in their actions, you might be able to use that to your advantage. For example, one of them was undercutting everyone on enchanting mats on a saturday night- I figured out that their algorithm only looked at the cheapest price per item in the various lot sizes they were posting and then undercut it by 1c. I timed an AH listing of several lots a few minutes before the bot posted his stuff, and priced my stock unreasonably low (15 silver per infinite dust), hoping that he would undercut me and I could buy him out. Unfortunately, they have a lower limit on how much they'll sell for. I priced the next one low, but high enough that he undercut me instead of ignoring my auctions, and sure enough, I picked up 7 stacks of infinite dust for 30% less than the day's already low price. That's 35% less than I could manufacture dust for.

Basically, these guys can be considered a gold sink. Once they're banned, I believe that all the gold they have in inventory gets deleted. I think Blizzard might even track down any obvious transactions of gold going to normal looking players for nothing in return and delete that too. The end result is less gold in the economy.

I doubt demand will actually decrease, as there are always more level 80s being made all the time. Corollaries in TBC were the aldor and scryer drops, which stablized at around 1-3g each depending on server. These continued to be farmed throughout the life of the expansion.

On my server Thorim Ore is about 25-35g a stack but [Star Ruby] [Large Opal] and [Huge Emerald] are all anywhere from 55-70g ea due to people leveling JCing.

Not as helpful as other advice in this thread, but prospecting is easy and if the prices on your server mimic mine this is a very good way to make some quick gold.

Fresh rerolls will have less time to get raid viable, so anything that gets them in shape faster is something they will do. Considering most will probably already have an 80 to feed it with gold the market should stabilize.

To add to the above, make sure to sell your relics in packs of 10 at most. They are used to purchase Iron Boot Flasks, which is needed for an ulduar achievement.

I've found that BC ores sell quite well with the added advantage that you can use your epic flyer to bounce between nodes.

Epic Gems confirmed: Upcoming Epic Gems and Profession Changes

I guess this means that it's time to stack on Titanium Ore in order to prospect it and profit largely when the patch arrives.