While you slumber.

[Shifty]

While you're not on to defend yourself, is your character in the game still or is he in his own little relm where he can't get hurt until you log on?  Kind of a stupid question, I guess but I really want to know.

[Karyuu]

Hiya!

I'm not sure what in particular you are asking about, so I'll offer a couple of responses:

1) If you crash or leave the game while in combat, the server keeps your character on to fight until the battle is finished one way or another. This is to prevent players from logging out in the middle of a fight without any consequences.
2) When you go offline normally, your character too "disappears." Many people roleplay this as having their character go do his/her own thing, like traveling, resting, etc. But your character is not logged on in any form if you aren't.

[neko kyouran]

Not really that stupid.  Its been asked before lots of times actually.

No, when you exit the game, your character does not stay behind.

They only time it does, is when you log out in the middle of a fight, the game will auto take control and finish the fight for you, either resultingin a death of your character or a win, depending on your character's stats and skills with the currently equiped weapons and the mob it's currently in a fight with.

This is to prevent people from logging out to escape death when they see that thier charcter is going to die from a mob they are engaged in.

Edit: Karyuu wins.   

[Tarel]

There are no stupid questions in Planeshift.

When you are offline, you character is stored in the Database of the Planeshift-server.
If you are logged out, then you're character is not ingame too.

[Shifty]

Ok, thanks to all that answered.  I only asked because Im tired of geting ambushed in other games without being able to defend myself.

[Karyuu]

As long as you don't log off in the middle of a group of aggressive NPCs, there's no way for you to get ambushed :] The only exception may be if you are in a guild war, but then you should be trying to log off in rather inconspicuous areas.

[Shifty]

Alrighty, thanks.  I think Im going to like this game.

[neko kyouran]

One little thing I'd like to note,

Do keep in mind that this game is no where near a "finished" project.  we're only at version .3.17 afterall, so many of the features to be made in game aren't actually there yet, but are being worked on.  I don't want to get you down or anything, but I've seen many a new player come in, take a quick glance at the game, think it will be the best game ever, and then get upset when they find out that many of the features they first read about and thought that they were awsome, aren't actually fully developed yet. 

Hope you enjoy playing none the less.