So, as of today, I realize that we have a problem. The problem is, a critical lack of people on the server. The max that I have seen is 25, and I have heard that the largest ever seen is 30 or so. Therefore I have a suggestion. We put the server up publicly under a graylist(or whitelist)
A greylist is like a whitelist, but unlike a whitelist where you can not play until you are approved, a greylist lets you play, but under large restrictions(Example:For a Minecraft server you would not be able to build/destroy/or pick things up.) Our greylist might be that you can only play as a assistant, or that you can only ghost and watch rounds. This would allow us more people on the server and we could allow them to decide if they want to apply by trying out the server. Or we could do a traditional whitelist.
I'd much, much rather have quality over quantity. What good is having 30 people every round if the round itself is crap? Keep in mind, Assistants can do roughly as much damage as, say, a Lawyer or a Bartender. Also, it would require additional code and maintenance of it to do that.
I say no to increasing the amount of people on the server. I don't get on often, but some of the best moments I've ever had were in the night with only around 10 people online. Interestingly enough, I often don't enjoy myself with a larger amount of players, and not just because I view Changeling and Nuke as rounds that can often be put as "Nope, you DON'T get to play." either.
Moreover, I detest the idea of the greylist. Something just irritates me about it. It turns my idea of the server from a gem worth finding into a club for cool people. It feels sort of pretentious to parade about the public servers while maintaining an exclusive guest list when we already have similar functionality with the Bay12 forums.
Also, if you know what you're doing as assistant, you can bring about horrifying results. The other day, I got arrested for having the third axe on station, insulated gloves, and a full toolbelt. I wasn't doing anything bad, and I tried to politely reason with security, but just goes to show to not trust security at all. Before that, I kidnapped Ian and put a bedsheet on him, parading him about as a twinkie-eating ghost. He also could somehow eat things from several feet away, which is interesting. And before THAT, I kidnapped Ian, hid him away in the dorms intending to eventually get him to the Ruskie station, and got a space suit before making my way off station as quickly as possible while shit blew up. I flew around space for a while, picked up the medical hardsuit, and managed to rush my way onto the shuttle with Ian in the last moments. It was a serious WTF moment for everyone involved, especially since apparently somebody had been blaming me for an explosion and for all sorts of mayhem.
Assistants can also still steal IDs, so it's easy for a griefer to be annoying as fuck. Break into janitorial -> steal galoshes -> cleaning grenade the halls and take everybody's ID. If they're still standing, set intent to anything other than Help and push them over.