Found this also taken from:
http://www.tski.co.jp/baldio/patch/20020213.html
Gameplay Related:
NPC and PC corpses can now be /considered to find out how long until they decay, and PC corpses additionally tell you how long you have to resurrect them.
The timer for corpses is now seven days for any corpse over level five, whether the player is on-line or off-line or any combination of the two.
So there was a 24 hour online decay timer, just never noticed it.
You can find Uaellaen's quotes on the site as well.