newbie wood elf, respawned with nothing
 

if this is the wrong area to post...apologies...looked around here, the interwebs etc...I remember respawning after dying and not having to go back and loot my corpse...is that a bug, or do we have to find our bodies and reloot them? thanks for any help.

The answer depends on the server you are playing on.

ruins of kunark server, was able to loot my corpse after about 25 minutes...created a mage and now cant loot that corpse..weird as hell...states I am too far away to loot, when I am standing on top of it....

See Server List or are you running your own server? I am starting to think this is a p99 thing.

Some servers emulate the original Everquest game mechanics, including the sometimes long, and dangerous corpse runs. You are probably playing on one of those servers and now have to go chase down your corpse wherever you died and loot all your gear before it decays. Servers that are true to the original game mechanics do NOT allow you to recover lost corpses or items so I'd get hunting for that corpse in the last zone you remember being in before it's gone.