Why do I get the “20 seconds to logout” delay sometimes and not others?
Doesn’t seem to matter how long I’m logged in, if I change zones or sit in one place, seems kind random, though I guess I see it more on characters I haven’t logged in a while.
(I know your all discussing more important things like fruit and farts, but just thought I’d ask if anyone knew)
It’s instant in a rested area
In rested areas you can log out immediately.
Ah! That makes sense maybe. Didn’t think about that.
There is inconsistency even outside of rested areas IIRC. Open world seems to have 20s whereas instances seem to be instant or a ‘log out now’ button? Dunno.
I just wish they’d add that for all logouts with a timer. I mean, even if I accidentally logged out, I can just… log back in before the timer would have hit 0 anyway. lol
Tinfoil hat 20 seconds x millions of logouts per day = lots more time played logged. 
Do you type /camp or go to the ? and click logout or quit game?
Camp is 20 seconds in non rested areas and instant in rested. The buttons give the option to quit now.
If this was a telephone company I’d say it was intentional for billing; but we pay flat rate per month.
There is a deep rabbit hole of nerdery I’m struggling to not go down on that one 
esc → logout
Usually.
Probably so you cant just instalog in pvp or something.
I don’t generally do world PvP.
I just meant why there is a 20 second timer out in the world. Pvp or so you cant just run to a boss or something and log out to drop agro
Oh that, I always assumed it was basically to make people think twice about logging out in a non-rested area.
Been doing that for years, I totally forgot about using the ? or /camp
Another way- use windows key, right click warcraft tab on taskbar, left click on “close window” - this closes the game right away, but your toon will still be in game for 20 seconds if you are in non-rested area so make sure nothing can come kill you during that time.
Potentially up to 30min actually if you’re in an instance. I’ve had this happen to me when I got caught in an infinite stun in an old raid. It will also lock out your account for that 30min.
You mean it will keep your toon in game until it is dead or has no aggro? I never had that happen, but I never log out that way unless I have no other option and everything else is frozen or something. Good to know.
Alt F4 is instant on my end
Made me laugh, like for you!
No, it’s a weird corner case of instances. You can run into it in a few places but the most common is BWL where you can get locked out if you die on the first boss. You have to wait 30min for the instance server to time out to reopen the gate (this doesn’t affect logout). In this case if you end up in a stun lock and then alt+f4 then the instance server will hold open the character for 30min until the instance server resets for lack of interaction. It’s not exactly the most common thing but it does happen and the GMs can’t do anything about it other than tell you to wait.
I ran into it in Mogushan Vaults trying to do an achievement solo.
You can’t logout while in combat