How things should happen -
*Death* - player dies, doesnt matter how (pvp, pve, discon/killed, or personal choice of cliffdiving onto flat rocks below)
Player respawns at totem. Body stays in dead state indefinitely at location they died. It should be visible to all, lootable by all, and not degrade except for a long time (say maybe half hour, maybe more). ALL ITEMS, from gear equipped to purses/pouches and everything in them, should stay on body visible to anyone who chooses to walk by or loot. If a person has a full rubicon set equipped upon death, corpse should display that properly, just as items are removed from it, displayed as well.
After alotted time (half hour or more) corpse removes itself, all items left are deleted/destroyed by the system. This gives fair time for accidental death players to return to loot their body, pvp victors to do what they will, pve players to have fair chance to recoup losses, AND also adds ability for players to find random dead bodies in the woods (should be possible, right?).
Also, think of tribal warfare - imagine the dead bodies scattered everywhere after a massive battle. The bodies didnt just dissapear...they had to be dealt with. This usually happened AFTER the looters picked through the items they wanted.
NOW, after stating that, I would add this
*DOWN THE ROAD FROM NOW*:
http://www.xsyon.com/forum/showthrea...ht=cannibalism
That is a thread on cannibalism/bury. This should coincide with the alignment system. Evil players could cannibalize/deal with corpses/victims killed in pvp or random dead body encounters. They would get the obvious alignment adjustments for *cannibalism* activities, along with the gain of loot/skinning/food/bones/etc. This is a BALANCE of being evil. For the good people, they could bury the body (aka click-destroy-burial) which would give alignment boosts for doing a good dead, aka proper
RELIGIOUS burial.
There is MUCH MORE DEPTH capable there with the same exact economical benefits. If a tree is felled, and logs are made, they stay in this game world indefinitely...why wouldnt items on death or even a dead body in the woods?
*Easily have npc animal dead bodies have the same characteristics as human bodies with the same destroy timer, say half hour, and much more content is added to the game overall. Benefits EVERYONE and is balanced.