Outside the auction house…
Several major guilds had scouts loitering around the auction house, constantly checking in on the items that went on sale and were being bought out.
There were many different ways to make gold inside the game and manipulating markets was one of the good and hassle free methods.
With little to no investment, well except for time, one was able to bring in at least a dozen gold coins even on bad days.
And this was without the involvement of massive guild wealth.
If the right amount of gold or materials were injected sometimes an imbalanced in-game economy could give tremendous profits.
This happens when one individual or guild monopolizes something highly necessary and then sells the item for high prices.
But nothing of that sort had yet happened in this game as no one had managed to get that sort of monopoly over a desired item.