Ah, I see where you are coming from Kvetch. I think Loria just misunderstood what artifacts quite were at the time, mostly because artifacts in no way shape or form waste money at this time. The idea is to make it so they become a commodity and people may actually spend money on them. The annoying part however is correct, because, it is annoying going through the hard work in loading an artifact, or purchase one, or be given one, just to have it poof after so long, as well as having a perz that is an artifact that you spend a silver to reload just to have it poof after so long. If anything I give her credit for at least posting on the forums and being new, at least cares that much about the mud. Plenty of oldbies out there and others who have been around not quite as long to be called an oldbie don't post on the forums... it would be nice to hear more people's input, because that is what makes up for better discussions. So really, anyone that posts, doesn't matter what they say, whether it be for or against something, I commend. I'd like to see more new players input and some old players who don't typically post alike start getting involved, but will that happen? No probably not. The people that post things clearly care to a degree. The people that don't are either indifferent or don't care, I'm not one to judge either way, but that is how it is as it stands at this time.
The point with my solution is that the timers are only offline, so this no longer prevents someone from gathering artifacts or getting one and it being lost forever offline. And by it resetting, it makes it so even someone who is active that simply logs out for the however many hours a day, doesn't lose their artifact, just because they played however long and had to log out for hours they weren't at a computer, despite playing everyday. Overall the purpose of no online timers is so they are perzable, if one is maxloaded then they can buy them, this way they are always obtainable in some fashion. As well as being permanent to those who are active players.
Just some thoughts.