To riff on what Frob has said --

Most people aren't going to get their rocks off being an anonymous shop-keeper performing busy-work in a realistically-rendered, HD environment. The reality of a Serf's life is far too tedious to ever want to experience virtually. That said, there are some people who get off on economic simulations (e.g. something like railroad tycoon, or others). But in those kinds of games, you're a god-like "manager" of a particular economy, not a single man running frantically from hot-dog-cart, to carnival game counter, to roller-coaster turnstile, back to hot-dog-cart again chasing patrons.

Those games tickle the funnybone of some people because you get to make macro-scale decisions at a higher level instead of having to act out every boring aspect. I believe that you could have a system of in-game jobs for people to participate in, and that some people might enjoy that in and of itself. Done well, it could be interesting for both shoppe-keeps and adventurers alike. But both parties have different requirements for their interface.

One idea would be for the player-character in the fully-rendered world to sacrifice the hours that their shop is running (or, leaving it to an NPC employee they've hired), and then building a separate (perhaps entirely web-based) interface that they can manage their storefront(s), set buys/sell prices, buy or sell stock on a wholesale commodities market, and participate in auction or direct sale of special items and services. There are interesting potentials for gameplay here -- he could become a baron with shops in every city, or perhaps they've become known as *the* place to go for certain types of items. As your business grows, perhaps it becomes advantageous to move goods around the country-side, so maybe you begin dabbling in trade-routes and dealing with banditry (or maybe you decide to outsource to someone who specializes in moving goods, or you become that guy yourself)

Balance is key, though -- you have to decide to what extent you want to interfere to prevent monopolistic practices from crippling your game, and the right difficulty/reward balance to make being a shoppe-keep interesting, rather than having a system where it simply trends to parity with being in any other job or living the life of an adventurer.

Other interesting jobs could operate by a similar mechanism, but not all jobs will be suited

A career role, especially not-very-skilled labor like selling stuff, is one of the least interesting types of role one could experience in a game. I'm all for playing a role, but I'm a l'm more interested in a role of interacting with NPCs in a way that I could actually change their minds in a way that would change their behavior, and I'm also interested in a role of building buildings and minigame-based crafting which creates the illusion of actually using skill to craft items, or sim/time-management crafting involving growing plants, breeding animals, mixing and processing ingredients to make foods, potions, dyes/alloys/fabrics, etc. Jill-of-all-trades, one-woman-economy, rich ruler of an awesome estate and clever hunter, those are the roles I like to play.

But if you want to run a shop, NeoPets had a good shopkeeper minigame for years (not sure if they still have it). I think that kind of PvE economic sim minigame within an MMO could be a lot more fun than a PvP version of the same.

But if you want to run a shop, NeoPets had a good shopkeeper minigame for years (not sure if they still have it). I think that kind of PvE economic sim minigame within an MMO could be a lot more fun than a PvP version of the same.

Last I logged in, the "shop" has taken on a role as a commodity exchange.

There is actually no decent economic MMO out there that I can think of - 'bout time some one made one.

(( I do find myself playing the "markets" in most MMOs I play ))

But if you want to run a shop, NeoPets had a good shopkeeper minigame for years (not sure if they still have it). I think that kind of PvE economic sim minigame within an MMO could be a lot more fun than a PvP version of the same.

Last I logged in, the "shop" has taken on a role as a commodity exchange.

There is actually no decent economic MMO out there that I can think of - 'bout time some one made one.

(( I do find myself playing the "markets" in most MMOs I play ))

I'm talking about the game Plushie Tycoon.

I think there has been some general consensus that market play interferes with main MMO gameplay, which is why auction house taxes are used to block market play. Other features related to market play, like restocking automation and better market search tools, seem to just be dev priorities so low they never happen. I do remember seeing one online historical economic sim that someone was asking for beta testers here at gamedev for. That's the kind where you get so much energy or turns per day to gather resources or put into factories to turn the resources into higher order products, and all the resources are bought and sold through the global market. It didn't have much else besides market play though; why struggle to become rich if there's no part of the game to enjoy your wealth in yet?

I know its tedious to play such a role

If it's tedious, you are doing "game design" wrong. Also, I'm sure there are people somewhere in the world who really love being a chef (for example). There are lots of fun games where you are a chef - I like Cake Mania, and I've seen similar games where you are a sushi samurai or a witch cooking potions or a bar tender serving drinks and snacks. This kind of job can be fun. I would do this kind of job in an MMO if it was fun. But who is going to play an MMO role which is tedious? No one will, and no one should. Giving a player tedious things to do is disrespectful to the player.