Pumping the partyhat again, I see. Why does it have to be a "big item" buyout? It seems that their scheme would work with anything that has some demand and that is relatively rare. Of course, you want it to be big enough to make at least some money, but it doesn't have to be hundreds of mils. In fact, if you don't have enough to buy out items that big, smaller items should work just fine. For example, some months ago, the merchers ran the dfh up to some ridiculous number like 60m or something. Also, small rares are very easy to buy out because they don't cost that much. Seems to me that ranger boots would be an excellent buyout opportunity -- there's a natural demand because they're the best ranged boots, they're relatively cheap, and they're quite rare. Also, supply is inelastic since they can't be made. Don't get me wrong, I don't advocate price manipulation, but it's going to happen whether I advocate it or not. I just can't see why merching clans who are willing to do it would give it up just because they don't have enough money to buy out the big ticket items. It wasn't merchants running up prices on DFH, it's because they were rare (only obtainable from mith drags) i guess there was a small amount of merchanting there, but it was mostly only because of the rarity of the item. And once pvp worlds came out and they because obtainable there, many many more came into the game and drove down the prices :?