How/when do items on the ground disappear?

[Bartimaeus]

How does this work? I put an unenchanted long sword on the ground in Umar Hills, left the area, and rested for weeks, come back, and it's still there. I know items disappear from the ground periodically, but I'm confused as to how often, what triggers it, and whether it's universal or an area-by-area basis.

[Jarno Mikkola]

...try killing couple a hundred of goblins in the mean time... I bet it had originally do with the memory management of the game, rather than time ... just like not all games have permanent corpses.

[Bartimaeus]

39 minutes ago, Jarno Mikkola said:

...try killing couple a hundred of goblins in the mean time... I bet it had originally do with the memory management of the game, rather than time ... just like not all games have permanent corpses.

Hmm, that's an idea. Game might only allow for so many items on the ground before it starts purging stuff.

[Bartimaeus]

Okay, my findings:

1. Though it was a good idea, it's nothing to do with "too many items on the ground before the game starts purging them" as suggested above.

2. Instead, it's simply "have you been gone from the area for a consecutive 24 hours?". That's all. No matter how much you rest in the area, whether it's a week or a year, it does not matter for the purpose of purging items in that area - you must leave the area for 24 hours, without coming back or being present at any point during that period, before items are purged. Even MoveToArea-ing between areas still triggers it.

3. That means if you leave the area, rest for 16 hours, come back to the area, leave and rest for another 8 hours again, it will only be at 8 hours for the purpose of the purge - every time you come back before items have been purged, the purge timer gets reset back to 24 hours.

This is actually a lot simpler than I expected (and explains why it seems like items can disappear so fast and easily if you ever travel from an area). So if you have important items on the ground that you can't pick up without leaving, you pretty much should always stick them in a container.

[temnix]

That's good to know. May be useful for my herbs idea.

[Bartimaeus]

On 7/30/2020 at 12:21 PM, temnix said:

That's good to know. May be useful for my herbs idea.

Since you're interested, I noted some additional details: when traveling via the map from area to area, you are considered to be in both areas (the one you're traveling from as well as the one you're traveling to) at the same time for the purposes of the purge. If there's only an hour left before a purge for an area, and you decide to travel to it but it takes 24 hours to travel to, the purge does not go through, as it is frozen while you're traveling to it. Similarly, if you travel from an area and that takes 24 hours, the original area you were in will still be at the 24 hours left mark when you arrive in the new area, so you can actually travel back and forth freely between two areas as much as you like with no fear of the items being lost, even if the travel time between them is 24+ hours.

Edited July 31, 2020 by Bartimaeus

[temnix]

Well, this will be more useful to others who decide to plant items of some sort on the ground, but thanks.