Does it necessarily mean death of the character IC? The battlefield topics suggest that, but I, for once, better see it as the character retiring from his adventuring life, rather than committing suicide.

It's especially so when the delete is not a rage delete, but just the player achieving everything he/she wanted with this char.

Post your thoughts?

I don't see much importance in how you construe what a deletion is, but deletion does not have to equal death. In fact, if someone rage deletes, they don't die, I believe the echo is they go into hiding. So I believe you can construe a deletion however you want. Since most any character is not going to have a lasting presence in CF, it does not really matter. If truly memorable characters became mobs or something (which I believe used to happen, like say Tahren), maybe then there would be importance in how things were construed.

I did the very thing you said with one of my characters. I was an explorer char trying out some warrior combos I wanted to, got bored so ate some grapes, became a woman (which was my best received role additions to date imm xp wise), explored a little more and then was pretty much done with the char. I spoke with some fortress guy at the Inn, told them I was going back home to my village, which when I went looking for a spot to delete I actually found the exact spot my role described without me having ever known about it before hand.

I actually got a really nice echo from Rayihn as I walked there, which oddly enough is the only sort of death echo I have ever gotten with any of my characters, and it was for a pending deletion. I then did a few emotes and deleted.

Would have been amazing if my char became a guard mob sitting there, but I don't think the Imms are inclined to do those things except in the rarest of circumstances. Turns out having your char name become a part of CF is really damn hard.

If I had it in me to Imm, I think that would be one thing I would try and do more of. Give those truly great memorable characters a spot somewhere in Thera. Hopefully that sort of thing would inspire some great RP from our players and maybe get people playing a bit more to try and get that done.