Mining was already made easy back in February 22nd 2012. They changed it so that in order to level up, you only had to mine x100 per the number of level you are. Example:
Level 1 - 100 Rocks to level up
Level 2 - 200 Rocks to level up
Level 3 - 300 Rocks to level up
Level 4 - 400 Rocks to level up
Level 5 - 500 Rocks to level up
(and so on)
There were many players mining at this time. All of the mines were filled with players. Also around that time, they added more minerals to mine, which made even more players come to mine.
But, it only lasted a couple days until the Mines went back to a baron waste-land and I was basically the only one left mining.