So my answer to this is going to be a little different to the others here, a lot of people want dev work done and things to be added, which would be nice, but there's also the argument for working with what we have currently. So lets talk about what can be done without any dev work.
I personally think the server could be much more enjoyable if the staff team, groups, factions etc... worked together to make it better. Instead of having any hard coded changes, things that are easier to change. Long post incoming, but this is my thoughts on things that are being done wrong (just my opinion obviously).
New Players
So the first thing issue I think we have right now is that a lot of new players aren't sticking around... why? Because we don't really seem to help new players all that much. Now I know the metagaming rule before any bites my head off, but you know when a new player is stuck and asks "Where can I get a phone" "How do I buy a car" "Why can't I hit anyone" why do we always tell them "Find out in RP" and refuse to provide any help to these players at all. Put simply they need to learn, but if nobody is willing to help them why would they stay?
The Learning Curve
Yes, undoubtably RPUK has learning curve when it comes to playing certain types of characters - take criminal characters for example, these players should start with small time crime like shop robberies and eventually progress up to robbing banks etc... but right now we are seeing players joining, doing bins, getting a gun and be into very serious crime within a week. How does that make sense at all?
Now I know the sanitation job has somewhat enabled people to easily get a lot of money quicker and allowed people to do this, but where does common sense come into it? How the fuck are people selling guns to people that have only been playing for like 2 days, it makes no sense at all. Yes they might have the money, but players should be more concerned with developing a level between their characters and making some kind of effort to help people progress their characters eventually, not taking their money.. handing them all SMG and throwing them in at the deep end.
Everyone is going on that their isn't a lot to do, but when you are doing this to people (or allowing them to do it through you) you are taking a lot of progression, discovery and fun away from them. You are basically letting them go from A to Z and skipping everything in the middle. Access to the majority of these items comes from one place, gets sold to a group, then groups sell them on. I personally think groups and group leaders need to be making that effort to ensure they aren't selling a revolver to someone who's only been here 4 days.
Weaponised Reports / Use of the RDM Rule
This, in my opinion, is simply of the biggest problems we have on RPUK right now that is absolutely sucking the fun out of the server for a lot of players. I won't hold any punches back talking about this, a lot of people do, and for whatever reason it seems to work. If you look at the forums during 'gang wars' all you see is people getting reported for RDM and other silly things that really shouldn't lead to a report. Like I said, I personally think there is a massive amount of people guilty of this, mis-using the report system to get their opponent banned, instead of roleplaying out the story. I do have some explains of this;
https://www.roleplay.co.uk/threads/report-a-player-member-of-ballas-gta-rp.427313/ - Context, these groups have been at 'war' for quite some time now, there has been a massive amount of build up, then this player has spotted Ballas, decided to hang around until the start chasing him, then you can literally hear him laughing saying "They are going to give chase" it was very obvious hanging around he wanted to be chased by them, but once he got caught the RDM report went up.
https://www.roleplay.co.uk/threads/report-a-player-ocg-unknown-rdm-gta-rp.426745/ - Again, groups are at 'war', everyone knows there is likely to a gun fight but they leave their turf knowing full well there is people outside waiting to kill them, then suddenly it's an RDM report as soon as it happens.
https://www.roleplay.co.uk/threads/report-a-player-multiple-cutlass-gta-rp.426251/ - This one again 2 groups are fighting, this player is actually scouting their turf, driving around the same and 'G checking' people to see if they are Cutlass, then Cutlass shot at them and somehow it's reported as RDM.
Even if these reports aren't accepted, this (in my opinion, not looking to start an argument, just my opinion) type of completely weaponised and petty use of the players reports is a massive reason that a lot of players are demotivated from playing the server. We seem to be in an era where people lose a situation and look to report others for any reason at all they can, and this seems to be fact, because how often do you see one of these reports going up where someone has RDM'd but the reporting player managed to come out on top? Very very rarely that happens - we seem to be playing against a mentality of if you win you post on Tweedle, if you lose you post on player reports. This doesn't apply to everyone, but there is enough people doing this in my opinion that it seems to be becoming a bigger problem for the player base.
I believe it comes to down to how the RDM rule is used and people interpret it & this is why I think the server would benefit massively from a drastic change to this rule. I'm not saying to remove it, I'm saying it should be looked at and re-considered what is actually considered RDM. It makes absolutely no sense to me that you could be at war with another group for a month, then you shoot one of them without saying hello first and that counts as RDM. I think it has a lot to do with the requirement for 3-5 minutes of footage, yes I understand why that's required and I don't think that should change, but I believe that people now base their roleplay on the last 3-5 minutes, instead of that just being a report requirement. People seem to have this idea that if there wasn't roleplay between 2 parties in the last 3-5 minutes then nothing else counts, and in my opinion it is seriously killing the potential for long term RP stories on RPUK. If staff were willing to re-consider how this rule is used and throw these trash weaponised reports in the bin, I genuinely believe it would have a massive position impact on the gameplay we see.
Now to be clear, I'm not saying remove the RDM, I'm not saying lower the standards for killing someone, or anything like that. I am simply saying players shouldn't be getting reported because they didn't 'get words' in the last 3-5 minutes, people need to start having more sense than that. If you have been fighting the same group for 2 months, expect to be shot by them, not invited in for a cup of coffee before they gently stab you.
Police Corruption Rule
I don't have a Police character, so this doesn't directly effect me, however I have a lot of friends that play Police and I hear about how restricting it is now that you cannot do anything corrupt without staff lead approval. I'll keep this one short because I don't know much about it - yes, selling guns, flashbangs etc... was fucking stupid, it made no sense to sell someone your gangs then get shot by them an hour later in a gunfight, however I believe the corruption rule should be re-visited now that the dust on it has settled. Police should not be allowed to sell their equipment agreed, however the silly corruption like taking PICs and beating them up in some alley somewhere was great corruption for the server in my opinion, bring it back.
Chamber of Commerce
I'll start this by saying I completely understand people have a life outside of RPUK and have responsibilities. However, I think most people would agree that the CoC has way more of their plate than they are able to handle already as it is & I believe some of the restrictions they have in place are just silly honestly when you consider the roleplay ability and the player, not their character themselves.
Recently the CoC have taken a step towards monitoring activity from business owners, which honestly I don't think is a bad thing, however it's just more work on their plate when they already have loads. Now onto my suggestion for this part - I genuinely believe that the CoC not allowing criminals to own businesses if they commit xyz types of crimes is damaging the player base of RPUK. I think it should be removed honestly, I don't believe it serves the purpose it was intended for on the server.
Now you have 2 types of business owners - you have legal owners who are scared to commit a crime incase they lose their business, which damages their ability and willingness to get involved in certain roleplay stories, and you have the criminals that are scared of getting caught and losing their business so are more likely to make bad decisions for their own self benefit with regards to their business. I don't personally believe any characters criminal record has a direct link to that players ability to play the character in a way that they run businesses in a fair and beneficial way, unless someone can explain to what the connection is there?
I think if someone wants to RP as a criminal but is also running a business properly with employees, fair wages, decent activity etc... then why should they not be able to? If anything if probably would (and has in the past) allowed for more character stories to develop from businesses because you have both the legal and illegal sides going on.
(I don't own a business btw and it wasn't removed either so this isn't some personal rant about my business)
Police/Crim Mentality
I've heard so much over the past year & on this thread about players mentalities when on the server and honestly yeah some of them are shockingly bad, there's no denying that.
I'll start with Police, yes I know there is a lack of content sometimes right now because there is no drug dealers etc... but when someone does try to rob a shop why does 8 units turn up including 2 firearms units? The thing that nobody seems to be talking about here is that if someone decides to rob a shop for some fun and 10 cops show up, you can almost guarantee they won't rob a shop again, because they know what the outcome will be. I saw someone say on this thread there is limits to unit numbers, but it's disregarded a lot because there is nothing else going on, sorry but that's an incredibly poor excuse and in no way a solution to keep it fair for both sides. What would you said if Police were fighting Vagos and Aztecas got involved to help them because there was nothing else going on...? If you have a max of say for example 5 units for a certain crime, stick to that 5 units and don't go over just because there's no other dispatches.
The part of the puzzle missing there is exactly what I said, if someone is met with a massive amount of Police for a petty crime, they just won't that petty crime again and it'll be both Police and Crim missing out on that potential RP next time. For example, me and a friend were stopped for speeding a few days ago - that stop included (by our counts) 7 firearms officers, 2 traffic, 1 CID and 2 response... just to tell us to slow down. At what point do you realise that isn't fun for the other side involved, because there's absolutely no way we would take a chase in those circs, which means you also miss out on the chase, the arrest, the potential RP that could have come from it. It's the same as the shark fishing an Occult member mentioned - you know if an MPO patrol came along, seized their sharks, fined them or arrested them and moved on having concluded the RP, they would probably go shark fishing again, but instead they were swarmed with Firearms cops and next time that RP simply won't be there.
Now, this is a sided coin, I'm not under any illusions when it comes to that. The criminal side of the server needs to sort out their mentality as well obviously. Shooting cops over traffic stops is just plain dumb, there's not really any other way to put it. This sort of ties into what I said about the learning curve of playing RPUK, it needs serious improvement from the criminal elements of the server to enable people to actually enjoy themselves when playing, instead of just going at 100 and shooting anything in your way. So often you see people complain about a lack of content, when really they just aren't interested in a large portion of the content that's available on the server. I know the Occult do this for example, every so often when things are a bit boring I've seen them just doing random crimes or store robberies etc... just for the potential RP that will come from it, but instead of shooting their way out they roll with the RP and see what happens. I think people do need to try it more often, rather than shooting your way out of every situation, try to create some kind of longer RP story from it.
Both sides on this post have both mentioned how things need to change, but it's clear they expect the opposite side to make the first move to make things better. Unfortunately with that attitude, it'll never get any better.
Current Suggestions
Very simple suggestion from me here - a lot of people has mentioned there is loads of suggestions for content there, but most of them are quite dated and aren't really relevant to the server nowadays. I honestly think RPUK should simply delete any suggestion older than 1 month and have a fresh start with it - that way you will see from suggestions (or re-suggestions) what kind of content people actually want to see. Rather than hundreds of ancient suggestions that people aren't even interested in.
For this entire post, Ill be clear, this is purely my opinion on the state of things right now. This is a few things I think can easily be changed that would make the server more enjoyable for the people that are playing it. There is a lot more that can be said, but I've said what's come to mind and I'm interested on what people thing of the few changes I've suggested, none of them require any dev work that I can think of, so they could be implemented a lot quicker potentially if the Staff team, factions or groups I've mentioned wanted to.
. But guess bring a 200k gun to maybe get away with 60k, if you lose you lose if u win hey maybe u can split that 60k with ur 4 man team.