I do believe a system of random item drops was in the process of being implemented, but let me just tell you this. That is not how you should be spending your time on the server. You do not need weapons or items to roleplay, and searching for an RL hour for them is very bad roleplay. You'd have had a much better time roleplaying then wandering around the forests looking for stuff, and doing that from an IC perspective doesn't make any sense unless you're roleplaying while doing so.

This is an absolutely absurd viewpoint with respects to Outlands RP.  It makes no sense for anyone in HL2 Outlands RP to have no items, especially not a firearm.  Even if you want every single player to roleplay as a newly-escaped citizen, this concept still does not fly.  There are simply too many dangers for any human being to survive without a basic firearm, or someone in their group possessing a firearm.  The average person does not know how to forage for food in the wilderness.  It is impossible to do any sort of large-scale agriculture on post-Combine Earth due to the existence of overbearing Combine.  With the presence of many nasty creatures from Xen and other worlds that came to Earth via the Cascade Resonance (Antlions, Headcrabs, and et cetera nasties from HL1 that were lazily exempted from HL2), it likewise makes no sense how someone could survive with absolutely nothing after escaping the city.  And ask yourself this: would you really be able to escape a Combine city, or even conceive of doing so, without any sort of supplies?

While I understand that character development is of the utmost importance, there are incontrovertible material needs for this sort of roleplay.  To deny this imposes conditions upon characters so heavily against the odds that they are as unreasonable.