Items on the ground..
 

... how long will it take for them to disappear?

Without someone picking them up of course..

Would it be save to do transfers to another account or is the risk too high?

about 3 minutes.

Not recommended method of transfer, but doable.

i've done it a few times.. but only with stuff i wouldn't lose sleep over if it went poof.

if you dont take forever to log in, its safe

if you think your slow test it...
buy a couple empty bags for 5g and drop those in a safe spot
then do a few practice runs to see how much time it takes you to log in

then when you feel you can make it in time, stand there an watch the bags rot
just to see how much extra time you have

if you make a mistake like.. log in the exact same accnt that you dropped from lol
just rinse and repeat.

ive even had bags with lore items and still had time to relog w/o losing items

I've done this about 200 times and have never lost any items. Just drop the bags about 5-10 seconds before logging out, and they'll be there.

Just don't do it in a zone without other players...Old Wives Tales tell about how items don't stick around on the ground when no players are in the zone!

[Starts watching his back as all the players follow him around town...]

This is an old wives tale ;)

on other emu servers the zones can shut down or reset
but on P99 all the zones are static, ive never lost a drop in an empty zone
in fact i prefer empty zones now in case someone finds me lol

edit: just to be clear, im usually transfering to a mule or n00b so...
all my drops are in cities or adjacent zones. and those seem static

yah i usually do drop on the ground transfer in an empty zone...

never know if somebody gonna run by and gank your stuff.

Drop a little earlier in the camp process or the server may not update the drop before you finish camping. I had this happen with a Yak long ago when that was an uber item and I was so afraid of someone picking it up that I waiting until 5 seconds left before dropping. Empty zone. Came right back on new character. Still empty zone and bag not there. My client showed the bag dropping at 5 seconds, but the server apparently didn't register it before camp was finished. So bag poofed. I petitioned and was basically told 'tough luck'.

Since then I've done this many times without a problem. Just drop the bags earlier, no later than 15 seconds left in camp for the last bag (if dropping multiples). Also, I always do a /who at about 10 seconds and screenshot at 5 seconds, so if anything is gone I can at least have a record of who else was in the zone.

its not that bad i usually drop on the ground.. then camp / wait the 30 sec