i still remember when I was S40 and my original goal was to set up a civilian refugee camp so people could PassiveRP in a quieter corner of the map and stuff like that
quickly devolved into the Diordna alleyway and that was pretty much just a merc camp and was much more succesful
kinda was the problem tho innit
"civillian" just meant "independant fighter" at some point, but I suppose it was inevitable. At the risk of sounding like a certain server director if people had been playing civillian "right" they'd all be hiding from gunfights and avoiding soldiers like the plague, but practically the only thing that type of playstyle has is pure roleplay which isn't enough for a lot of people.
It was easier for me since I played Coalition and like 80% of these civillian soldiers were on 'our' side (Real American Patriots), but I knew that every time I saw one I basically had to consider them a combatant, not a civillian, and unlike ppl in NATO/Coalition they had practically no rules and no consequences as long as they didn't get caught. I know most of them only cared about losing all the req/gear they'd collected when the risk of PK was broached, not about their characters lol. (not trying to imply faction players are inherently superiour roleplayers, but we had more rules, things to lose, and waaay more scrutiny. We couldn't just decide to solo IED a patrol because we felt like it)
there was just a lot about civillian faction that didn't make a whole lot of sense if you looked at it from a realistic/roleplay point of view.
Why would civillians be in an active warzone?
why would civillians run out into an active gunfight to loot bodies? (this! made! me! so! mad!)