Alright, so first of all I want to get some things clear. The reason I am writing this is because I love the concept of CVT. I love part of what has been done and I really hope to see this server back up and running like it did in the old days.
This is not a flame topic, I don't want to start a war, all I want is to try and expose my opinion hoping that some people will agree with me so we can make this server the server it could be.
I am an old CVT player. I left a lot, for small periods of time but I always kept coming back because, like I said, I love the concept of the game. I first joined CVT about 2-3 years ago, so I really saw it grow and now I see it fail.
So, for our newer players, I want to tell you how CVT was about a year ago: All 100 slots were often full and you couldn't get in the server. There were often no houses for sale, and when they were they were often 1 slot houses. People were fighting hard over 2 slot houses. Compare this with today and you can see the disaster: at peak times there are no more than 50 people on the server, there are 621 1 slot houses for sale, 109 2 slots, 17 3 slots and numerous other really big houses that used to belong to old time players. What this tells us is that people LEFT CVT and they keep leaving.
Why are people leaving and why is the community getting smaller?
I believe the causes are:
1. Some admins don't really deserve to be admins. Since I don't want to start war and flame, I will not give names. I have seen a lot of bad attitude from some admins regarding the way they are treating players. Admins need to be leaders. They need to know how to lead a community, how to build it. What most CVT admins are, they are cops. They are given the power to enforce the law (as in server rules) and suddenly they can't wait to apply it. They don't think a lot of stuff through. They like feeling powerful and they use it every time. They don't lead, they just apply the rules whatever the circumstances. They "shoot first and ask questions later" or they don't even bother to ask them.
2. Nothing new and very exciting was added to the server for a long time. Please take a look at the changelog from the last year and tell me 2 things that were added that change the server in a major way, adding awesome new features. Apart from the armor van and armor/thief job and some mapping, nothing changed in an entire year. This adding to the fact the the server is more puzzle-game like, causes people to easily get bored and leave.
3. I am sorry to be a little more language aggressive about this, but how hard can it be to get the technical aspect of a server with no more than 100 people sorted out? People are complaining about these lags and downtimes for half a year and nothing is being done. Or, what is being done has failed.
I believe this are the main aspects, and to summon up, I believe that it all comes down to the fact the the owners of CVT don't really care much about it. There could be any number of reasons, but the bottom line is that they don't invest enough resources into this, and I don't mean money, I mean time. Time to fix things, time to watch how things develop, time to see what players are doing, time to add new and exciting content, etc.
So, in order to fix this brilliant game and community, CVT owners need to either sell the game to somebody who has more time to invest in it, or start investing this time themselves. They need to start looking at the way admins take care of people and correct it, they need to start thinking of new and exciting things to add to the server at least once every month and they need to freaking fix all the hosting problems. And, I am sorry but if I have a car that I am no longer using, I sell it because I can make up some money and because it's no longer bothering me by being in the way. People's lives change and we welcome new stuff and we get rid of the old. It's perfectly understandable and normal that at some point, something comes up that is a lot more important than CVT. If people don't have time to take care of CVT, why still bother with it? It will destroy the community, and it will also be a pain in the ass for the owners who probably don't like it anymore.
I am sorry, but I am self-employed and I come from a world where if somebody does a bad job, he gets fired. This, although it might be harsh, it is best for the company whatever "the company" is.
Some of you may know what League of Legends is. It is by far the most successful game at the moment. Why? It is no big secret: Fast reliable servers, changes and exciting things added almost every week, community oriented on anti-flame and cooperation between players not by enforcing it but by convincing them that it is better this way.
Most people will probably not understand what I tried to summon up here. They will consider this spam or flame (as stated by some server rule) but I know they will understand I was right when either CVT community starts to grow again as a result of the implementation of some of the changes I mentioned or they end up leaving because of one of the problems I stated above.
Thanks for your time viewer. With hope for a better CVT,
iMad
This is not a flame topic, I don't want to start a war, all I want is to try and expose my opinion hoping that some people will agree with me so we can make this server the server it could be.
I am an old CVT player. I left a lot, for small periods of time but I always kept coming back because, like I said, I love the concept of the game. I first joined CVT about 2-3 years ago, so I really saw it grow and now I see it fail.
So, for our newer players, I want to tell you how CVT was about a year ago: All 100 slots were often full and you couldn't get in the server. There were often no houses for sale, and when they were they were often 1 slot houses. People were fighting hard over 2 slot houses. Compare this with today and you can see the disaster: at peak times there are no more than 50 people on the server, there are 621 1 slot houses for sale, 109 2 slots, 17 3 slots and numerous other really big houses that used to belong to old time players. What this tells us is that people LEFT CVT and they keep leaving.
Why are people leaving and why is the community getting smaller?
I believe the causes are:
1. Some admins don't really deserve to be admins. Since I don't want to start war and flame, I will not give names. I have seen a lot of bad attitude from some admins regarding the way they are treating players. Admins need to be leaders. They need to know how to lead a community, how to build it. What most CVT admins are, they are cops. They are given the power to enforce the law (as in server rules) and suddenly they can't wait to apply it. They don't think a lot of stuff through. They like feeling powerful and they use it every time. They don't lead, they just apply the rules whatever the circumstances. They "shoot first and ask questions later" or they don't even bother to ask them.
2. Nothing new and very exciting was added to the server for a long time. Please take a look at the changelog from the last year and tell me 2 things that were added that change the server in a major way, adding awesome new features. Apart from the armor van and armor/thief job and some mapping, nothing changed in an entire year. This adding to the fact the the server is more puzzle-game like, causes people to easily get bored and leave.
3. I am sorry to be a little more language aggressive about this, but how hard can it be to get the technical aspect of a server with no more than 100 people sorted out? People are complaining about these lags and downtimes for half a year and nothing is being done. Or, what is being done has failed.
I believe this are the main aspects, and to summon up, I believe that it all comes down to the fact the the owners of CVT don't really care much about it. There could be any number of reasons, but the bottom line is that they don't invest enough resources into this, and I don't mean money, I mean time. Time to fix things, time to watch how things develop, time to see what players are doing, time to add new and exciting content, etc.
So, in order to fix this brilliant game and community, CVT owners need to either sell the game to somebody who has more time to invest in it, or start investing this time themselves. They need to start looking at the way admins take care of people and correct it, they need to start thinking of new and exciting things to add to the server at least once every month and they need to freaking fix all the hosting problems. And, I am sorry but if I have a car that I am no longer using, I sell it because I can make up some money and because it's no longer bothering me by being in the way. People's lives change and we welcome new stuff and we get rid of the old. It's perfectly understandable and normal that at some point, something comes up that is a lot more important than CVT. If people don't have time to take care of CVT, why still bother with it? It will destroy the community, and it will also be a pain in the ass for the owners who probably don't like it anymore.
I am sorry, but I am self-employed and I come from a world where if somebody does a bad job, he gets fired. This, although it might be harsh, it is best for the company whatever "the company" is.
Some of you may know what League of Legends is. It is by far the most successful game at the moment. Why? It is no big secret: Fast reliable servers, changes and exciting things added almost every week, community oriented on anti-flame and cooperation between players not by enforcing it but by convincing them that it is better this way.
Most people will probably not understand what I tried to summon up here. They will consider this spam or flame (as stated by some server rule) but I know they will understand I was right when either CVT community starts to grow again as a result of the implementation of some of the changes I mentioned or they end up leaving because of one of the problems I stated above.
Thanks for your time viewer. With hope for a better CVT,
iMad
You nooob 
... you murderer