Currently if you are away for more than 14 days your inventory gets cleared. I would suggest that a person be given an option of paying a fine instead of having their inventory cleared. For each day over 14 that a person is away from ECC a person can be fined $1k to prevent their items from being deleted (their .dat file from being cleared). Now, the logic is probably such that it clears the .dat file at the 14 day mark because a person might NEVER signon again and this is a space conservation issue. However, if a person has $15k in their balance, this clearing won't automatically occur until after 29 days away from the server. If such a person logs back on before the 29 days, then they will be given the option of paying the fine or having their items cleared.

Of course the purpose of this is probably to prevent large numbers of .dat files of people that really aren't playing ECC. A different option is using the balance as a way of extending how long a .dat file will remain. A person's .dat file will always be allowed to remain for at least 14 days. Beyond 14 days a person must have $1k in their balance/day that their .dat file will remain. $30k in your balance will allow a person to log out for a full 30 days before their .dat file is deleted. 365k in your balance will allow being logged out for a full year.

Why do I bring this up? This happened to me (I was off for maybe 3 weeks, though I thought I logged in more recently than that). Thankfully, my melon sword was packed away. Everything I lost can easily be gotten back, I just wish I didn't have to figure out what it was that I lost that I need to get back. Having a large balance is obviously considered evidence of having had a certain amount of dedication to the server (as can be seen by the balance and home rules) and as such should give such a person a certain amount of leeway before this occurs. Of course, I will probably never leave stuff ON my character again, just in case I won't be on for a long period of time. But, having 320k+ in my bank should preclude this from happening to me. Someone else with a similar balance should also not have to worry about that.