I guess I would be interested in a truly economics oriented game that modeled nations without it being about wars, raids, guilds, spells etc. Not sure if something like that exists though.
Well, not so much spells, since it's space oriented rather than fantasy, but it does have a complicated, realistic economy with corporations, wars, and economic exploitation.
A Tale in the Desert is probably the closest I know of.
Its player base is limited compared to most MMOs (around 1000-2000ish, last I looked), but it's a combat free game centered around economic production.
It's also a bit unusual in that it has no in game currency. The last time I played (a bit more than 5 years ago), it was largely a barter economy. However, there was a player run item exchange whose credit functioned as a defacto currency.
I have no idea what the current state of the game is, but if you're curious about a non-combat economic MMO, it's worth taking a look at.
It seems like the game would need some sort of non-utopian conflict-driven backdrop to create enough desire for whatever products for there to be an interesting economy.
That's an interesting observation. I wonder if that's true of normal economies as well and that final agents of economy, people, would ideally want in-game/in-life situations in which they can "win" for value to be produced.
Well, not so much spells, since it's space oriented rather than fantasy, but it does have a complicated, realistic economy with corporations, wars, and economic exploitation.