no, each spark of life is around 1 real year of game time when you are killed (cup de grade) you lose a set of days that is based on your fame and age, so i person with no rep may only lose a day or 2 and a king could lose lot more.

I would suggest reading the Dev journals to get a better idea of how the system works.

In essence though you are correct. You can be killed while offline though only a coup de gras actually costs you spirit. Being knocked out will not. When your spirit runs out either through age or through deaths you will need a new spark to play. The journal does a good idea in laying out the average lifespan.

A bunch of us did the math and unless you make dumb choices (spending the night in a wolves den or jumping into a volcano) or are incredibly unlucky you will get more play time for a single 30.00 spark of life than most typical subscription mmos.

And no, no one here actually wants CoE to be free to play. Pay to play keeps most of the trolls at bay and with the spirit system it makes death actually matter rather than just a quick corpse run.

It takes multiple deaths before you truly die(before you have to pay again)..Without dying you can go a 10-14 RL months without having to pay but you can also use story points(Currency for being active) to buy your next live. If someone ganks you while you are offline your character will not completely because you cannot spirit walk offline. If you die from old age you do have to use points or pay for a new spark of life.

As stated by Telasusblade, if you die you do lose time off your characters lifetime but you can't be ganked to death because you stop losing spirit if someone is camping you for a bit and not getting your HP to 0 does not equal death...0 HP just means you are knocked out..Someone or something has to Coup de grace (killing blow)you to kill you..

A spark of life lets you play through the entire life of one character. Their natural life span is about 12 months.

In combat, when your character's health drops to zero, they are knocked unconscious. This does not reduce your character's life span. Other players, and the occasional NPC enemy may choose to perform a coup de grace, knocking your soul out of your body for a short time and costing you some of your character's life span. The average player will lose two day's worth of life for each coup de grace (if you are a noble, or have earned a high reputation you will lose more. Kings, for instance, lose about two months of play time for each coup de grace). You cannot be coup de graced more than once every two and a half hours, and if you are coup de graced while offline you will not return to your body until you are online again (If you are offline for more than 28 days while the soul is separated from the body, your character will permadie). When your character is old enough and/or has lost enough of their lifespan, they will permadie (We also know of two environmental effects that cause permadeath - falling into a volcano, and being lost at sea when sailing on the deep ocean. Unlike PvP, it will be your choice whether to risk your character on these dangers). That is when you must buy a new spark of life to continue playing as a new character. For the average player, even if you are taking many risks and dying frequently, you will get at least 3-4 months of playtime with one spark of life.

The system is complicated, but it should make risks meaningful while also limiting abuses.