There is nothing to do as a Citizen in your spare time.

[Equinox]

There is nothing to do as a citizen in your spare time. If you can find inter-character roleplay, it's fine, but that is no guarantee. If you can't find that, which is a majority of the time unless you want to play not only the most extroverted dude ever but also gamble on someones quality of RP, you are relegated to walking around aimlessly.

"Go to the work desk."​

The work desk is not manned nearly enough to fix this. Most of the time it is empty. People are literally clammoring for work just to do something in their downtime yet cannot find it.

"Attend workshifts."​

These happen even less than the work desks, are low in numbers from what I've seen, and usually get filled with a minute. Sometimes they aren't even announced. If you don't sprint the moment you hear the call, if there is a call, you are out of luck.

"Interact with Civil Protection"​

They are the most anti-RP faction I've seen on this server as far as an antagonist goes. Any attempt to interact with them outside of committing crimes right in front of them is met with a resounding "Fuck off" from all of them. They aren't even antagonistic unless something big happens, which results in everybody getting locked in a room for thirty minutes as they beat everyone and then walk away. These aren't even totalitarian police. They're just harsh police who will commit brutality and nothing else. No random searches. No nerve wracking questions. Nothing. Funnily enough, I've seen the fucking OTA interact more with you than Civil Protection in a manner that is actually intimidating.

"Go pick up trash."​

No. I want to roleplay, not fucking grind.

"Go be an anti-citizen."​

There is no fucking indication of actual resistance. There's wayward gunmen who proceed to shut down everything, and then just committing petty crimes in front of officers so you can get any sort of roleplay. People are now relegated to just doing stupid shit in front of cops to provoke any sort of reaction. Meanwhile, there is no hint of actual resistance. No anti-government graffiti. No posters. No vandalism. Nothing. What I'm going to assume, because this is the case every fucking time this type of shit is happening, is that rebels either don't exist (Staff Issue) or more likely, the rebels are just fucking around and circlejerking in the sewers and outlands instead of, you know, actually forming a resistance (Faction issue. Combine aren't being invasive enough.)

---

This fucking sucks. I am begging for literally anything to happen. Workshifts, interesting endeavors, etc. All I've seen that helps that is the CCDE (open for about 30 minutes and then never seen again) and some sort of attempted assassination that didn't actually contribute anything to Citizen RP other than giving a spectacle and the cops a reason not to man the work desk.

 

[zeroday:)]

i think devs are working on automated workshifts or something like that

kewl thats a good improvement definetely

 

[John Rico]

For all its flaws I really enjoyed my time as citizen back when I could play a conscript-citizen. Despite that faction being an absolute mess from day one up until it was phased out, the promise of a mission on the horizon would let me play the mundane life of a citizen without getting bored immediately. Even while having to deal with the nutjobs that staff chose to lead the faction for like 95% of its existence, the 24th was worth the time just for the roleplay it opened just through interacting with your platoon mates.

Nowadays there's nothing like that for citizens, it's just a nothing faction.

 

[Rabid]

For all its flaws I really enjoyed my time as citizen back when I could play a conscript-citizen. Despite that faction being an absolute mess from day one up until it was phased out, the promise of a mission on the horizon would let me play the mundane life of a citizen without getting bored immediately. Even while having to deal with the nutjobs that staff chose to lead the faction for like 95% of its existence, the 24th was worth the time just for the roleplay it opened just through interacting with your platoon mates.

Nowadays there's nothing like that for citizens, it's just a nothing faction.

Hot take time to riff off of your point: There's a reason why all of the best things for citizens have always been making them do things that citizens wouldn't really do and don't actually fit what being a citizen is day-to-day on server.

This is the problem I have when people argue "citizenrp isn't prioritized!!!" - make an event that actually sticks to what CitizenRP is meant to do without resorting to giving them guns or dragging them into danger or criminal-esque things and see how long it lasts or how fun it is. It won't happen. People act like funneling citizens into being a rebel or loyalist or cop is bad when that's where the majority of people will end up anyway.

The one exception I know of is when people run stores and stay neutral but that's not the norm.

 

[John Rico]

Hot take time to riff off of your point: There's a reason why all of the best things for citizens have always been making them do things that citizens wouldn't really do and don't actually fit what being a citizen is day-to-day on server.

This is the problem I have when people argue "citizenrp isn't prioritized!!!" - make an event that actually sticks to what CitizenRP is meant to do without resorting to giving them guns or dragging them into danger or criminal-esque things and see how long it lasts or how fun it is. It won't happen. People act like funneling citizens into being a rebel or loyalist or cop is bad when that's where the majority of people will end up anyway.

The one exception I know of is when people run stores and stay neutral but that's not the norm.

The Alaska event is a good example of what I would suggest, a change of setting where citizens are pushed into becoming the protagonist faction by necessity, sharing the 'responsibility' of ensuring their survival with Overwatch factions, but with the added spice of having to get creative as you'd get no guns (unless you're a rebel ig). Those frontier kind of settings are a roleplay gold mine and it's kinda strange that no one tried to experiment with the city roleplay genre even after more than 10 years doing this shit.

 

[Senor Sauce]

I wholeheartedly disagree with your take on the underground. However, even if you were 100% correct, I feel that does not detract from your argument. You SHOULD be allowed to do something in the above ground, other than biding your time until you can get to the sewers; The server goes down for 2 days out of the week. Even if those two days are spent doing small things, adding atmosphere to the server is better than the mindless wandering people do normally. It doesn't have to be huge events, maybe save those for a monthly thing (Not at all a big expectation, I'm not sure why the events are so sparse as it is), but even if the admins created RP opportunities, it would certainly help as RP topside largely relies on players creating it.

Some other ways to supplement RP...

Willard has always had an incredibly unique opportunity to play in the gray area. CPs are not mindless robots, most of them are human people with a goal in mind, whether that be just to survive, clean the streets, serve the Combine, etc., they have emotions. Therefore, the CP FACTION as a whole should allow for more gray area RP.
Instead of capturing an infractor and shooting him in the head because he has a few infractions (I just saw a PK appeal for 1 603 infraction on an otherwise clean slate. That makes no sense and is really cringe), trying to re-educate them to be apart of the society should be the goal, or if they're too dangerous to reintegrate, send to OCR, stalkerize them, or Don Lorenzo them to make an example. Keep in mind, the human race's population will not increase, and killing humans does not produce for the Combine.

The reason I bring this up, is because CPs should more often ALLOW certain characters to be informants, spies, plants, spooks. I am not familiar with how much brainwashing or conditioning occurs once you become a CP, but wouldn't it make more sense to send people to the sewers to gather info as spies, rather than killing any citizen who dares walk near the sewers? Police do this in real life; they offer the dealer a way out if they get the supplier. I understand this has happened, but it should be proactive from the CPs, and certain citizens should get privileges to do things other citizens would get burned for, IF and ONLY if they supplied the combine with actionable information and were proven an asset. (BTW I think people should be more able to do this as rebels spying on the Combine as well)

This adds more fun for people who want to do loyalist RP and not draw on their IPad all day to make propagenda posters. Just a thought.

 

[Tzangdilli the Erudite]

I have spent two weeks roleplaying a citizen and for the majority of that time, I've been in my apartment. Despite my attempts at forwarding roleplay with anyone, I've made little progress. Not that theese things don't make sense in the world of HL2RP, Mind you. Saw a rebel in the sewers, tried to roleplay and he just said 'NO SEWER BAD GO AWAY' and ran off before proceeding to just shut doors in face. I go to look for roleplay, and there's none to be found.

The whole 'collect trash' thing would be great if there was some kind of terminal I could recycle trash at, 'one credit per can' type of thing.

There was one time late at night where a GM had me roleplay some stuff about the Infection, and that was great. That's what GMs should be doing with Citizens. ENGAGING them. When I go bird and I literally see Vortigaunts fighting helicopters in the harbor with -no- roleplay whatsoever ( at least from what I can see ) it really puts a damper on my hopes for Citizen Roleplay.

 

[JustWats]

I’ll say, I’ve been relatively active within the current quarter of the year. Resistance RP has changed drastically, there’s been a major unification among the player base. There’s been less infighting, there’s been less political tension. Overall players on the rebel side are getting to a point where they can typically coexist and develop at the same time. Truth be told it’s really enjoyable imo, the RPG and grind elements are still there. But that won’t change because of the current baseline that is present.

Not to say that there’s still issues. I typically play EST so when most of the people get off. The problem I see is that there’s a lack of freedom to create RP in the plaza. When compared to Resistance which does not force you to find ways to do it, you just can do it. I’ve got an idea in mind that I’ll be executing in the next few weeks on my citizen char. This map is also not as conducive because it’s a literal flat circle.

The main problem is that there are so many barriers to entry for every facet. Want to work? Need to ensure the shop owner is online. Want to join a faction? Need to ensure the faction lead is online. Want to start something big with someone in power? Need to ensure they are online. There’s too many single points of failure for it to be autonomous. There needs to be more second/third/fourth approving lines of authority that allow for RP. There’s no reason every store shouldn’t be open at some point in the day with how many players are on the server. If a faction lead is not in, there’s no way you can do anything without just going.. “welp, I want to do this, but I have to wait.” and then you have a character who’s in groundhogs day. Doing monotonous dailies and small talk until they get to develop or do ambitions.