As far as I remember logging out required the players to wait for a timer to run down. This was in place to prevent players from just logging out to flee from

As far as I remember logging out required the players to wait for a timer to run down. This was in place to prevent players from just logging out to flee from fights/escape dying. But it also meant if the client lost connection, without the player going trough the log-out procedure, their character would still be present on the server and in-game world, often for several minutes. Made it quite tense when losing connection during a difficult fight, you never knew if you logged back in to a won fight, or logged back in respawned at the temple with all your stuff gone, as your character lost the fight while you were disconnected. And because very early on there was only one place where every dead characters would respawn, the temple, organized groups could target somebody for repeated killing even while they were disconnected, they just had to be fast about it before the character timed out.