Well, the prices are determined by andrew and wewin to balance the economy and not make one way of getting money better than the rest. The prices need to be balanced so that the server can run smoothly and and not have some players ruining the Hardcore Economy that we have.

 

Not really. Diamonds are more of a user-ran market. If you mine constantly with a fortune 3 pickaxe, you will get 250% more diamonds than with a regular pickaxe. Fishing to me is really slow and slightly boring.

 

The fish prices were elevated to make it viable source of income. With mining you're not just mining for diamonds your also mining for redstone, coal, lapis, iron, gold, emeralds, the combination of mining all of these makes more then fishing and almost as much as farming. The last time I when mining with a eff 5 for 3 pick I found about 50 diamonds in one hour. As Ryan said diamonds are a user based market, a few months ago a player lowed the price by selling cheap diamonds. Lastly there isn't a large demand for diamonds, as once you make your enchanted diamond tools you can keep getting them repaired.

 

'almost as much as farming' Mining makes around 12k an hour compared to farming 18k, mining has never made close to farming.

 

What are you farming for 18k an hour >_> also my luck sucks with mining so i'm more on the 6k per hour side xD

 

Originally there was no server price for diamonds, the reason the server price was added was to reduce the number of diamonds in the economy and therefore attempt to raise the price of diamonds.

 

Because, until recently, you couldn't sell diamonds to the server at all.