Here's an idea inspired by the d&d downtime activities section of the 5e dungeon masters guild. What if, when you log out your character continues his or hers life as an NPC, AND, you, the player, can loosely program said character to preform simple tasks at certain times/seasons of the day/year. This npc version of you could also be set to respond to actions performed against it. Say if your attack he'll ether defend him self (AI judgment of your skill and defends appropriately) or runs away attempting to get the help of the city watch.
Example, it's bed time and you just got the seeds you need for your farm, so you go to the schedule menu, set your character to take care of the task of planting and tending to the farm in between it's eating/drinking/sleeping phases. You log out, your character continues on until you log back in. You could do this with so much more but I believe this would both in rich the world and appeal to casual players while avoiding to undermined hardcore players (unlike most casual play mechanics found MMO's today).
Side note. Popping out of exists when logging out has always been disruptive to my immersion in games, and the few games (ark survival) that don't do it tend to leave you defenseless. This suggestion seems like the bridge needed to overcome those issues, or so I believe.
What do you guys think?
Should the game have such a mechanic?
Or is it just a waste of processing power?