NOPE, that's the BIG draw for me. When a skill is set to train.....it trains. You DON'T have to be online, your account DOESN'T have to be active. SOO....say you go on vacation, or have a big test.....or something like that where you can't logon for a few days/weeks......You're not behind when you come back like in other MMOs. Some skills can take a month to train...and it's common for players to "take time off" while that skills trains. 30 days later when they come back, reactive their account, the skill is done. That skill that's gonna take a day to train? Set it before you go to bed. When you get up to play, switch to a shorter skill (like one that takes 15minutes) and then before you logoff, switch back to the skill you trained the night before. Point is...ALWAYS have a skill training. So yeah.....to take the long way to answer your question. You don't have to be online to train skills.