Mostly Roni explained pretty clearly the things. I tho will answer separately on the suggestions the way I see it.
- Change the rules, Yes change them! Add some rules for setting CTs, The CT should make the game fun, Not to play first & last reaction until he finish the round, To have a real clear mic, And good accent, They should spread some fun in the server by their actions, And try to find the rules that make the server fun too.
Rules can always be adjusted in time to suit the needs of the public and the existence of the server. I'd like to quote something from wikipedia, where you state to make rules that make server fun:
RulesWhereas games are often characterized by their tools, they are often defined by their rules. While rules are subject to variations and changes, enough change in the rules usually results in a "new" game. For instance, baseball can be played with "real" baseballs or with wiffleballs. However, if the players decide to play with only three bases, they are arguably playing a different game. There are exceptions to this in that some games deliberately involve the changing of their own rules, but even then there are often immutable meta-rules.
Rules generally determine turn order, the rights and responsibilities of the players, and each player’s goals. Player rights may include when they may spend resources or move tokens. Common win conditions are being first to amass a certain quota of points or tokens (as in Settlers of Catan), having the greatest number of tokens at the end of the game (as in Monopoly), or some relationship of one’s game tokens to those of one’s opponent (as in chess's checkmate).Rules are meant to have boarders. To restrict someone from doing something unlawful or unacceptable by public. Why rules and laws will never be fun? It's because we need to restrict one and other in order to have a friendly environment. If more people would understand how life is, we shouldn't need rules at all. We would just enjoy rule-less gaming. In order this to happen, we have to reach our higher selves, if that tho happens I doubt we would be playing games anymore.
Another thing is people who would like to join CT and command, but doesn't have the capability and/or experience to do so. We can't blame them from wanting to try. As Roni said, everyone should have a chance to try at least once. I understand that "new players" are not always familiar with the environment, the game play and "how to" in our server, but I have to agree that if someone's microphone has a background noise or in general it doesn't sound right, they shouldn't be CT's.
About creativity, well, only a small amount of people in this world has a natural part of creativity. This is because most of us are left brained - logic, laws, control, where as right brain is - the creativity, individualism etc. If i had to make a percentage, I would guess that only 20% of all of us can be creative.
- The server fun stands on 2 things : Admins and CTs, Because if we're 20 Ts, We wont make fun, We just have to follow what admins/CTs ask us to do, So you better care more about this point, as a solution for the CTs, You can edit the rules using the point #1, And for admins, That will be back to you highstaff, Choose the admins wisely, And ask them to make the atmosphere fun!!
I will have to disagree with this one. The servers fun stands with the people who play daily on the server only. It's not in any matters whether they are administrators or normal players. Same as CT's, they can only create as much fun as much it is taken by the rest of people.
I won't force administrators to make the fun! It's not their duty. Their responsibility is to provide a clean, rule breaker/cheater free atmosphere and as I explained about most people being left brained, then I cannot ask that as a must from our team. Also, as we know, if administrators will start to make fun - it will jeopardize their position and our rules. If anything, admins are players too, and if you want any changes, you have to start with yourself and people will follow.
- Make a new topic for "Featured CTs", The good CTs can be awarded, You can offer them medals, jb points or whatever you can offer, You may also give them the opportunity to self by themselves when ratio needs, Without an admin choose, The featured CTs can be chosen by highstaff only.
- Make a new topic for "JB Games", Im sure that some people do really have good ideas for new games, Other than first and last reaction
, Let everybody share his games so the CTs who dont have ideas, can use whats written in the topic.
- Make a topic for the "Best Rebeller, Best Commander, Best Admin, Most funny guy, ..." Every month, That will motivate the players to do their best.
This in overall isn't a bad idea, it has been talked about since very beginning when me and Roni was appointed as the leading staff for JB. We have set this back for several reasons and one of the main factors is that we are focusing on the new mod, new system which we are implying same as our staff team. We are still processing JB from what it was to what we want it to be. Most importantly what you people want it to be.
All 3 things should be looked into sooner or later.
- Well yea, Once again. Admins should follow the rules just like the players, Admins you really have to read this, I will REPORT any admin who dont follow rules from now on, Yes! Call me an agent. Even close friends can be reported, Please try to be good example for an admin, Dont use ur mic all the time, and try to take action, Dont laugh watching the cts freekilling, i saw this scene more than once, Its a suggestion topic so this suggest isnt for highstaff but for admins.
Now this is down to each admin themselves and they know where they stand and what will happen if the reports come in, if they are found guilty of any kind of abuse, we will not tolerate it. I have trust in our current admin team and we have said to them everything they need to know. Whether they follow it or not is not in our hands, but only theirs.
- Give the rebellers chance of the game, No shop and no rtd and no even good plugins (As i mentioned in tonykarams topic), You have to help the rebellers, many of them left JB. Why? because they may have fun with rebelling, And there are no any chance for that anymore, I know that some people disagree with me about this, They hate rebelling! But hell.. Some people have another thoughts! Thats why each one in this world eats something different than other.
I remember seeing that you mentioned the people who left, unfortunately I don't see it anymore and I have a very weak memory.
A lot of people left JB, same as a lot of people left Ambrosia. 90% who left are focusing on their studies/life, therefore we part our ways with them. People come and go <-- this sentence has been passed several times in Ambrosia when there is a talk about people leaving.
Keep in mind that the reason why some rules changed the way they did is because we want to have a balance between the teams. Rebelling is part of the game, although not as important as commanding in this instance, due to the fact you can still play jb without anyone rebelling. It is fun for some and I agree that it's also important to take advantage of it and help people who like to categorize themselves in this area.
RTD is something we all had fun with, but it never lasts and that's fine too, because sometimes we need to have something fresh and different which gives a good laugh to everyone.
Shop isn't my cup of tea, but this again is something what majority want's and yet this might be good for some, it won't be good for others. Shop can be accessed individually, it is not forced so therefore it's in your hands only to use it or not.
Well I am working on the shop, but I can't simply do it all in one day. There is the foundation that I have to lay out in the code, get good suggestions that are not over powering and the implement them before finally testing the shop and check if there are any bugs that could be found. It's not a one day type of deal.
Second of all, you can't simply buy good commanders these days. Most of the players on the server are kids, yes kids that are less than 15 years old. How do you expect them to be creative? There are a few exclusions but well that's it. Creative isn't something you can buy, it's something you are born with or something you acquire after a long period of time.
Now in my honest opinion, and I am pretty sure everybody will attack me after reading what I have to say, increasing the ratio of the T:CT will definitely help. Why? Let's say you change the ratio to 1:2 (for every 1 CT you have 2 Ts), then the CTs will be able to get a better control of the Prisoners and that way, the commanding officer will be able to command freely and be more creative.
Last but not least, the language is a huge barrier. Yes, non-english speaking players that often go CT, have a problem expressing themselves in English. If the server was in their native language, then I am pretty sure they would handle everything way better.
I don't want to forget the rules that ambrosia follows, well if you know anything about me is that I hate those rules. I think they are stupid and some rules doesn't even make sense. If it was up to me, I would change everything, yes everything. But again, it's not up to me, it's up to the players who play on the server.
And the last thing that you obviously also know about me, I hate the fact that ambrosia follows a logic where you have to play Cage Day every single day until the end of the map where you only get a couple of 3 rounds of fun as special days (which I don't call them any special what so ever). I grew up playing JailBreak on american servers and we had the vote come up every single day. I know what you are going to say, that way the players will always vote for a "special day" (see how I put that into quotes?). My answer is no they won't. Mature players won't ever do that. Maybe that's why I am used to this, because I used to play with a lot of mature players back then and most of them where around 20 and 25 years old. They played JailBreak to have fun and not to rank on the server in question.
I don't think you need to be brainiac to put "2 + 2" together. There is a huge difference between players being mature 20+ and having a full server with players 13+. Maturity also takes a toll a lot in our JB. Look at it this way Tony, if we had this maturity level, we wouldn't need any fancy plugins like yours

. I also believe that there wouldn't be any rules either.
We have to understand that, yet there might be better servers with a lot more consistent players, but due to the fact we are multicultural community the same goes to our JB, we won't discriminate between people.
We will have to look at other ways how to improve, but I honestly cannot see this work in our current JB, Tony.
In overall:
We haven't finished with JB. We are still working on it and we cannot yet say that JB is at it's final stage of completeness. Sometimes I have a deep feeling that it will never be complete no matter what we do, because it's a lot to do with players. We can provide the best service and the best server, but it wouldn't matter if we have the boring/negative/angry players. I hope you understand what I am trying to say. JB is going to be as much as fun, as much fun you can be yourself. People have the power, not us, not any of our high staff, unless it comes out of someone's pocket like Casper