Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm..........
I'm a staunch defender of the .addrp item command. I come from the days of silver tokens, an era long past, and I remember how painful it was for everyone involved. You'd have to look up the costumes you wanted and make a list in the form of a GM ticket. Then, you had to submit the ticket, and wait and wait and wait and wait and wait. All the while the GM's (who at that time, were few in number) struggled under an ever-growing mountain of tickets. And then, if you wanted to go really crazy with multiple outfits, you had to grind tons of gold to get extra tokens. It was a real lose-lose for both players and GM's.
So, I would argue that the .addrp item command has done a LOT more help than harm. That isn't to say you're original point isn't true; its just that the benefits outweigh the costs. Its true that the command does hamper the construction and growth of the in-game economy, but its only plays a minimal part in it.
The reason why the in-game economy hasn't been able to take off in the way players / GM's want it is because COTH lacks the inefficiency that's necessary for an economy to grow. In other words, an economy is the result of resource inefficiency. Because time, space, and natural resources are not infinite, human beings were forced to rationalize a way to distribute such things in order to attain an equilibrium of those things that makes the most efficient use of scarcity.
For example, if a society of 100 people can live off an apple tree that produces 100 apples, every member consuming exactly 1 apple each, no economy will evolve. However, the moment one of those people say "I want to have two apples",
then the formulation of an economy can start to occur; the society will have to figure out the best way to manage the new demand for this resource, being able to take it many ways. Dictate the management of the supply to meet the demand, and move towards the equilibrium where both are equal to each other.
The problem with COTH is that we're in the 'perfect society' stage. That is, supply is unlimited and demand is very low. That isn't to say we're 'spoiled', no. As I said before, the .addrp item command is very useful, convenient, and flexible. Vast amounts of utility. The problem lies within World of Warcraft, or rather our approach to it vs the design that Blizzard made. Blizzard set up the economic wants around the standard MMO in-game mechanics. Weapons that do more damage, armor with better defense, rings that increase your mana-pool; the game's economy is based around the want and acquisition of these goods.
Problem is? None of that applies to us role-players. Our approach to the game is vastly different from the design that Blizzard envisioned, and thus our demands operate in the esoteric; value placed on the intangible and aesthetic. This, of course, leads to an oddity in-game, as us RP'rs are prone to look at Tier 8 armor and say "Eww, wtf! There's no logical RP reason for someone to have spiked flaming alien shoulders!" Generally, we take more value in the things that make our characters look more 'believable' for the role we're trying to wrap them around. Stuff that makes our character look noble, or grungy, or what have ya.
The problem here, then, lies not in the value of these goods, but in the precisely limited way in which they can be produced. This is why the .addrp item command is so necessary; being able to get the specific item model of a gray item isn't something that can be done with current in-game mechanics. Blizzard wasn't placing any value in White Tunic of the Whale that randomly dropped off that Defias, despite how spiffy it looks on a character. Therefore, the ability to reproduce that item lies only in the hands of either a GM or someone with the .addrp item command. Taking such ability away wouldn't create an economy, it would stifle it. My estimation would be that it would shift our production to an oligopoly model; an economy in which only a few firms control market power. Which, of course, would be a very stringent and 'boring' economy, which is only affected by those who dominate the means of production (the ones who can do the .addrp item command).
So, while I understand where you're coming from Rigley, I would have to respectfully disagree with your thesis on how the .addrp item command ruins merchant RP. To me, the problem lies in multiple parts. The first being...
Us RP'rs don't know exactly what we 'want'. The value we place in things is so subjective, based on things outside the game-realm. We're more likely to pick a gray over a purple item, because it suits our specific character better.
And the other being,
There are no good, specific in-game ways for us to produce a supply of the things we really 'want' (those snazzy white and gray cloaks that drop off randomly).
Because there's no real product for players to want, there's nothing for them to spend their money on. That's why people are currently throwing twenty in-character gold and more on Cressy's auctions; they don't have anything else to spend their gold on.
My suggestion?
We have to make a consensus on what players really want. Really, really,
really want. What they're willing to save up for, what they're willing to work for. Then, we have to figure out a means of production that isn't too concentrated or hegemonic to satisfy that need. One idea?
Housing.
A custom house made anywhere the player wants it. But! Make it expensive. And require resources outside of pure gold (wood, iron, glass, etc). And make it require weekly rent. And have plenty of goodies that a player could fill their house up with. Maybe, if some new form of crafting were to be set up, this could allow individual players the ability to create goods that would be demanded. Go out, gather 20 pieces of whatever-lumber, craft
[Spiffy Table of the Awesome], and sell it for 2 gold for a Blood Elf to put in his house. Then you can set up an economy for raw resources, and get into all sorts of sexy marginal costs and revenue and...yeah.
This would, of course, require TONS of GM oversight (too much for them want to bother with, for understandable reasons). And, honestly, I don't know the first thing programming wise on how to make any of this possible. Even if you were to use the resources spawned in the in-game resource nodes, how could you translate them into stuff that can only be spawned by a GM command? It escapes me.
All I know, with my very limited academic knowledge, is that without a concrete demand, no supply can be made. Without those two opposing forces, the 'economy' of COTH will always be stagnant. The solution to that is to create a demand--not nix commands--in order to facilitate the natural economic process.
...its definitely a complicated subject. One that escapes my current knowledge. Definitely worth having a separate discussion about, methinks.
Hrm. This post was long. And serious. Seriously serious. So, if you've read the entire thing, enjoy some Yasushi Ishii. If you didn't read the whole thing and just scrolled down to the bottom, enjoy some Yasushi Ishii anyway.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=RWaKyLybUdI