Originally posted by Epitaph:

Yes, game definitely needs a pause feature for solo games. Problem I have noticed is that logging out doesn't seem to stop the timer for mead or food. I logged out with over 5 min left on my poison resist mean in my solo game to run to the rest room and refill my water. Logged back on to find that not only had my mead worn off but all three of my foods were flashing and had to be refreshed, they were not flashing when I logged out. Mead and food timers should stop when you log out, in my humble opinion.

All buffs and debuffs shown in the top right corner go away when you log out. (A cheese panic way to potentially avoid dying from poison)
Food timers pause when you log out.