I've never played a PVE server, but I find PvP very easy to make money on. The trick is to work the AH. Focus on trade goods, everything else is too hard to sell, trade goods are always in demand and get used up. Focus on trade goods with low deposits. Enchanter's goods are ideal since they cost nothing to auction, there's almost no reason to ever have shards or dust in the bank.

Watch for glut events where an expensive material will be driven down, either by a population shift (large populations level together and changes zones), or a farmer push. Buy those out and wait. Sometimes it's just a matter of Thursday buys and Sunday sells at 200% profit.

When you're reselling, farmers are there for you to exploit.

Inflation is your best friend.

Another ideal situation is a wide price range. If there is 40-50% between the low and high, buyout the low then resell it somewhere below the high price.

Many small sales are more profitable than a few big ones.

Never bother with a material that has more than one screen worth of auctions (50). With a few exceptions, the only people who will sell those are undercutters.

An open market is a chance to kite prices up. Sacrifice a few deposits so others will price under you. Then cancel and undercut them.

Auction-gank flooders and farmers. If someone posts a few screens of something at a low price, try to under-flood them then bid on all their stuff. Ideally you can do this and still make a minimal profit. When it's an item with a high deposit this can be especially satisfying.

There are always other things to do. On my server (not telling), Rugged Leather prices are currently down below 1.5g. However Rugged Armor Kits are selling for 1.75g. You can make two with each stack of leather. Buy at 1.5g (or better), make two armor kits, sell for 3.5g. Two gold profit isn't bad for one trip between the AH and mailbox.

Using these ideas and others, I can usually pull in a few hundred gold a weekend.

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