Short answer is: 6-box bots. They hunt green/grey mobs for the trash drops, fill up their backpacks, and sell it at the field merchant.
Imagine a company where a worker does this for an 8 hour shift, then changes the shift to the next guy that sits down at the keyboard and continues. Run this operation 24/7 with a room full of 6-boxers.
They could make quite a bit of cash that is mailed to a few central characters that work the transactions.
There are also a few legitimate ways:
- The higher end charaters that can access the higher zones and mobs get the big drops. They sell those at the broker. Adept III spells commonly go for 45g+. There is a player-seller on Najena named High that seems to have all the Adept III's I need. :(
- Buy low and sell high. If you watch the market like a hawk, you will catch items sold for low prices. I don't like this method as it jacks up the market, but it's done. Jacking a price too high will result in no buyers.
- Sell rares. If you are lucky enough to harvest a rare, you can sell it for 20g+.
- Farm. But not in the sense of camping a spot. Hunt everything you can, the bigger the better. I used to harvest till I puked and would sell stacks of tuber strands for mere copper. Now I hunt everything in EL and Zek, getting drops of armor and other items, most of which I cannot use, some of which are no-trade. That which I cannot trade, I sell to the merchant. If a guildmate could use something I find, I mail it to him. I typically get 2-8 gold after a few hours.
- Tradeskill making lower combines. Sell these at the broker to the higher TS'ers that don't want to waste time with lower combines.
Since the new patch got rid of all merchant-sold furniture, requiring folks to buy from players, that opens the market for those that make furniture.
It might follow that other tradeskills will get the same boon. What would your selling be like if merchants no longer sold weapons? :)
So after a few months of playing, I have yet to see my first platinum coin - I have about 55g in the bank. I've spent maybe 50g on spell upgrades and items. If I sold my Heritage items to the merchant I'd get another 20g each. I've found some good armor as random drops, but not the uber-est possible.
I've found that as a casual player I will always be in the "middle-class". Not rich, but equipped well enough. And that's fine with me. :)