From AD&D, I know that initiative refers who strikes first in a melee round. Someone on gameplay just posted that there is a well known effect of logging in/out on initiative in CF. Is this true?

It used to be that if X and Y were involved in a PK situation, and X had logged in more recently (or linkdropped and reconnected), X's swings would come first in melee, and Y's would come after.

That has been changed to the reverse, making it even more beneficial to remain logged in. This coincided with the WHO list becoming 'flipped', showing characters at the top who had been logged in longer and more recent logins at the bottom.

That's a really nice balance act, like most of what you guys put into the game: a reward for taking the risk of being around longer, but not so much reward that it's unbeatable.

Thanks for explaining it, it's hard not to get paranoid when everyone really is trying to kill you

Never knew this got put in. Thanks for this.

It isn't based on who actually "logs in" first. It's based on who connects to the game first. The difference? You can theoretically connect and stare at the skull for an hour or so, then connect and the game will pop you at the middle/top of the who list, rather than at the bottom where you belong.

Not sure if it's significant enough to fix, but it's something I noticed when ZMud likes to auto-reconnect when I quit out, and sits there til I log back in.
I know the game will disconnect idle connections after a while.. but it seems to take over an hour or so.