I was reading a TrekCentral article from a year or two ago and, to my surprise, found reference to my own work in the Star Trek Voyager: Elite Force roleplaying community many, many years ago. Looking at the name of the author of the piece, I recognised it immediately. It was one of the most regular players on our three servers of choice and someone who had a leading role in many of the storylines I had either written or was involved in.

Here I was, now in my thirties, suddenly hit with the knowledge that someone I roleplayed with when I was sixteen was not only a contributor to a large digital platform, but still looked back fondly on something I had created what feels like a lifetime ago. I had a lot on my plate at the time and it made me quite emotional. For somebody out there, I was that Captain holding a coffee morning on the bridge of the USS Poseidon. A genuine privilege.

It was such a different time in my life, and in our little corner of the internet. I was a considerably more shy person, still in secondary school at the start of it all, with no idea who I wanted to be. I don’t have much of anything still connected to that space. But to know my early contributions stayed in the memory of at least one of those who were there meant an awful lot to me.

It was also a reminder. No matter how invested you are in a thing at any given moment, one day it could just be someone else’s memory.

A little over a week ago at my time of writing this, after half a decade heavily invested in the FiveM roleplaying community – and ending with my role as Brand Manager of Let’s RP – I decided to walk away.

In truth, it had felt inevitable for some time. But I wish the team and the community nothing but the best. There is nowhere I would rather spend my time in the Grand Theft Auto roleplay space. Unfortunately, for me, one too many figures had forgotten what Let’s RP was all about. It was no longer a place for them to tell stories, create opportunities and develop their characters. It had become their ego-stroking, self-indulgent fantasy where personal grain trumped all.

Too often in recent times had the Let’s RP staff team become the target of misplaced ire from individuals who had forgotten that the server was a community project. Everyone, collaborating and working together to find solutions to problems, create intricate and memorable storylines, empowering each other’s scenes and characters. Instead, they would accuse the team of not doing enough. Not working enough. Not playing enough. Making the wrong decisions because they didn’t benefit them.

The final straw was a player who had already admitted that they would no longer be contributing positively to the community threatening to leave if their character that they didn’t intend to play was not financially compensated for the repossession of a business they had no interest in running any more. While this misguided negotiation tactic was in itself laughable, it was just another notch in the absurdity the FiveM community could kick up.

Despite dealing with the death of a close family member, and the months of legal wrangling and financial concerns that have followed, I choose to believe that I have been able to conduct myself with more dignity than some of the behaviour that I have witnessed from others over the last six months. It was just no longer worth the toll on my own health and wellbeing to think about any more. Not least for an entirely non-profit, voluntary role. That last part seems to go over the heads of entitled individuals who expect every opportunity handed to them on a plate.

I have been tremendously proud of the Let’s RP staff team over the last four years, and you will not find a more hard working lead developer spearheading the project for no recompense. Over the years the team has made decisions to prioritise the safety and integrity of the community over chasing numbers and I stand by every talking point I have laid out before the world since joining the team in 2022. I leave behind some of the best in the business, staff and players alike, and look forward to seeing what each of them do next. I only hope that those who wish to see the project ill move on of their own accord and allow those passionate players that remain the freedom to tell their own stories.

Let’s RP has many incredibly generous players who I will miss sharing scenes with. Your Thongmans, your Napolios, your Flash’s of this world to very unfairly name but three. All of our UwU and Weazel News teams. All of my former Vagos compadres who turned Felix Luna from a character I wanted to delete to my favourite to inhabit (even if I had to give him up anyway due to anonymously submitted feedback that I was a racist). Anyone who enjoyed a game of the completely original music-based trivia quiz Cab-Busters. Lord knows I wish I had the likes of Emma on the team two years ago and any server could hope for twenty Artys.

There will never be enough credit to lay at Thongman’s door in particular for his determination and ability to create opportunities for others, particularly “off-peak.” One of the most creative minds in the business, whose ideas for what cinematic roleplay could and should be surpass any that I could have once conceived. If you are ever lacking inspiration, just listen to the man speak on the subject for five minutes and the magic will come flowing back. Sharing storylines with him over the last five years has been the bedrock of my experience in this community and who knows how far I would have got had I never chased down that first taxi so long ago. Genuinely life-changing events followed and I will be forever grateful.

I am also lucky to have so many years of screenshots, clips, VODs, highlights and other edits to take with me – right back to my first ever Jay Walker stream – along with many more friends and memories that will hopefully last a lifetime. Needless to say that the people I have met along the way are what I will treasure most of all. My one big regret is not giving a proper goodbye to Maisy Murphy, who became my favourite character not long after Danni introduced her back in 2.5. But truly they were all my favourites because I know that her talent and boundless passion would always lead to exceptional moments with my favourite human. I hope that she at least feels some relief that I will no longer have to joke that a video game server is the first thing I think of in the morning and the last thing I think of at night.

Personal relationships within roleplay spaces can be weird. That has never changed. The emotional investment in our characters can be deeply rewarding and exhausting in equal measure. But the threat of mixing emotions in and out of the game is ever-present. It is a problem any roleplay space inevitably has to mediate and I’ve sadly seen first-hand how quickly even flesh-and-blood friendships can be tossed aside in favour of virtual relations with a stranger halfway around the world. In the tumble dryer of these online spaces, it doesn’t take long to work out who is going to dependable and who is going to disappoint you. Those experiences and betrayals of trust are ultimately going to be my biggest low point of the last five years, but not enough to dispel the many good moments. Once you find your people, stick with your people. You never know when you might need them. At the end of the day, I’ve been one of the lucky ones and cutting out toxic influences has never been difficult.

So where does any of this leave me? Hopefully not at the end of my roleplaying career. I still want to create characters and tell stories. Only a few weeks ago did I create my replacement for Felix and put a lot of thought in to their backstory, traits and motivations. A southside port worker, heavily in debt to collectors on his tail. I had custom stream elements created and ready to go. Homeless and living out of his car, Dante‘s desperation would eventually lead him to fall in with the closest street gang to the port and reunite me with my Vagos family.

Please enjoy the starting soon music I picked out, because I was pretty damn happy with how perfectly it fit the vibes.

This was going to be the start of another slow-burn storyline, with a couple of factions lined up to be involved along the way. Having Dante work at the port also leant back in to my favourite past-time of inventing jobs for myself with no supporting mechanics whatsoever. I spent some time “commuting” to and from the Port, mapping our what would be his regular routes, patrol zones and jobs he would carry out over the course of a night shift. I even started hanging out with the regularly spawning NPCs at the docks, making up names and previous conversations they would have had.

This planning was all part of just spending time existing in the world as my character, making sure I had a handle on their routines and place in the city before fully exposing him to emerging circumstances. Long after concluding my Jay Walker series and after the success of the Francisco Fuentes miniseries, I was ready to begin making highlight videos again and put much of my focus in to reconnecting with the Vagos in this new form as it was the part of my RP that always felt undercooked. I’ve never been a useful criminal, but the potential of street gang RP has always greatly excited me.

I long felt Let’s RP was unlucky to not get that third southside faction off the ground since the launch of 3.0. A two-way tussle only gets you so far and a third gang would have blown the doors off the southside. Far more than another OCG. But the Aztecas and Vagos have done a great job making the most of what they had for so long. I am sad I won’t be starting this new story, but my excitement for doing so has at least reminded me that I am still passionate about storytelling.

I don’t want to just pick out a random FiveM server and start again without all my pals. I certainly won’t be promoting another server as long as Let’s RP remains active. I believe my time with Grand Theft Auto V is simply, finally over, and you might say just in time! I’m ready to spend some time with other things. Finish the games I haven’t finished in the last four years. Use my evenings more diversely. Claim victory over Danni on more mini-golf courses. Pick up my beginner Procreate courses and draw more shaky landscapes. Watch the downfall of Blackburn Rovers Football Club in real time. I’ve considered a jaunt back in to RedM but it just wouldn’t be the same. I’m sure that one day, after losing three years of my life to GTA VI, new opportunities will present themselves.

I’ve also taken an important step already by driving numerous hours in to a game I’ve been hearing about called SMITE 2. If you aren’t aware of what SMITE is, it’s a game in which no matter what you do, your teammates will be deeply unhappy with you and use you as leverage to issue an unconditional surrender to the enemy team at a moment’s notice. There’s probably more to it than that, but I’m having a great time regardless. I’m sure it is designed to be played with all forms of communication disabled, so I shouldn’t encounter any problems.

My return to Cities: Skylines II has also been well-documented. I had almost forgotten just how much I love those games. It is an almost meditative process, planning out districts, making terrible mistakes and watching the simulation catch up with the six roundabouts you have just placed on a single street. It’s also just another excuse to make something from the ground up and watch it thrive. It has been a perfect excuse to get much more streaming under my belt after a very stop-start length of time. Even when I don’t have much to say it’s good to just hang out with folks and ignore their pleas not to create a brand new intersection by hand or a neighbourhood comprising of nothing but cul-de-sacs.

Away from gaming, as my work routines return to normal I’m trying my best to stick with my health goals. After spending two weeks with Danni’s new walking pad I am insistent that I need one of my own. But I will still aim to make the most of the light evenings while we have them to get out and about, as well as keeping up my daily workouts. Apart from the problem outlined in my last post (ultrasound confirmed what was expected, nothing more nefarious than that), I have tried to keep myself otherwise in good shape. Though it certainly feels harder. I know that I’m not old, but I’m certainly not sixteen any more either. Smaller knocks that wouldn’t have registered even just a few years ago now seem to take longer to get over. I’m becoming increasingly sensitive to what I eat and drink. I’m somehow becoming a lighter sleeper than I already was.

But after a year of putting so many things in perspective, that’s all quite alright.

I’m going to have to find a reason to open DaVinci Resolve or Photoshop from time to time because it won’t be long before I start getting an itch, but there’s nothing in the pipeline at the moment. I’ve even cancelled some creator-based subscriptions for the first time since I started making FiveM videos. So at least I’ll save a little money (and I definitely didn’t only recently cancel a premium subscription for TrackyServer, two years after the server listing was transferred out of my account). This does remind me that my final FiveM cinematic went out with a perfectly fitting title.

Also rather fittingly, I leave FiveM with absolutely no idea what anybody looking for a roleplay server actually wants or how to market one to them. But god knows I tried to find out. I’m only sorry that my best was not good enough for those who sought quantity over quality.

For all of its flaws and disappointments, the vast majority of experiences in Let’s RP and FiveM have been overwhelmingly positive. I’ve met so many fabulous people. I’ve taken part in so many unbelievable events and storylines. Been part of so many rewarding projects. Too many to count.

I am grateful to everyone who has supported me on this journey. I’ll be continuing to cheer on Let’s RP from the sidelines, so keep sharing your stories. Take those screenshots. Make those clips. Start those streams. Preserve as many memories from these times as you can, because you never know when it’s time for the ride to end.

I don’t know when I will have cause to post here again, dear reader, so thank you for your time. In the meantime, you know where to find me, and at the end of it all I can walk away having found my soulmate and a new extended family. Far from waving the white flag, I think that I can choose to declare victory.

See you out there.

Alternative title: Bollocks

Hello dear reader and welcome back to the last WordPress blog on the internet. That may not be true but, until I’m presented with evidence to the contrary, I’m allowed to parade that statement as fact. But this is the one you have been waiting for, because there’s going to be a mention of my testes. You don’t get that with Darren Hardy.

We have a new Prime Minister here in the United Kingdom, so unfortunately my entirely true anecdotes about meeting the last one have run their course. Rest assured however, that I will make it my mission to confront Andy Burnham about his stance on Watch Dogs 2.

Readers of my last post will know it has been a season of change around these parts. This has been my first full month settling into a new normal, even as other things continue to evolve. After supporting a romping production of The Wizard of Oz – including a full rework of the lighting arrangements by yours truly – another school year has come to an end and with my big summer project already out of the way, I’ve enjoyed my first few days of rest. I say rest, but that might be a bit of a stretch.

Yesterday was a day of two halves. It ended with wine, music and dancing, after the conclusion of the Let’s RP Fashion Week event. That sounds fancy, you say. It was, I reply. It was the first big test of Let’s RP’s Creative Team, established to support and enhance existing storylines within the server as well as take the lead on brand new experiences within and outwith our virtual escape of Los Santos.

The team put in many weeks of work, selecting and modifying locations, assembling runway categories, contacting business owners for themed events, arranging bespoke characters to serve as judges and ultimately building five days’ worth of events to run consecutively on the server in the hopes that players would be able to come along and commit to a week of roleplay quite different to many others.

As with other elongated (great word) events before it, the wait to see if it would pay off was a nervous one. However, a great group of players came along to our X-Factor-esque auditions and continued to show up night after night to put themselves in with a shot of winning some cash prizes, a deal to become the next Face of Los Santos as well as a new home in Vinewood Hills.

I can’t speak highly enough of the Creative Team’s passion and efforts in not just the prep work for the event but also running it on the ground, night after night. Not an easy task, but one carried out proficiently. The players who chose to get involved did themselves proud and I hope that they all enjoyed taking part and will be able to look back fondly on this week as something a little bit different.

So when all was said and done by the after-party at Nocturnal Private Club, there was definitely a feeling of relief. But I must admit that it wasn’t just the event itself playing on my mind. As I said earlier, that Friday was a day of two halves.

I’ve spoken about how for the last year and change I’ve been trying to get fitter and stay that way. More outdoors time, hitting my step goals, eating healthier, drinking more water and daily workout routines which take precedent over anything else once I get in the door from work. Despite the upsets and setbacks that life has thrown at me, I’ve found myself in a better place both physically and mentally than I have for quite some time. But recently something has been weighing me down.

A couple of months ago, I woke up with what I would describe as a noteworthy ache in my groin which took a large chunk of the day to subside despite topping up on painkillers. Once it had, I forgot about it and moved on with my day. But in the weeks that followed, masks by life events, I had started to feel more and more pressure down there.

I hadn’t really noticed just how uncomfortable things were becoming until I was feeling the need to go to the bathroom almost every hour. Not an urgent need, but enough to make sitting or even lying less pleasant than it used to be. There was nothing unusual about my going to the bathroom, but my first thought was that maybe I had picked up a UTI somehow. At least that should be a quick diagnosis and hopefully a quick fix. So I did the test but, rather annoying, the results came back clear.

So I did what anyone who had a new Cities: Skylines save on the go would do, and continued to ignore it.

But the longer things went on, the more uncomfortable they became and the more they were affecting my routines. Skipping days. Missing my goals. Finding it harder to sleep. Getting increasingly irritable and frustrated without being able to explain why. Except I knew why. Then I got another reminder, waking up at 5am with another relentless ache down the left of my groin. But sometimes it felt a lot more localised than that and had the realisation that a lot of the discomfort was coming from one side of my crown jewels / marbles / nads / goolies / nadgers / cobbler’s awls (balls).

Suddenly my plan of ignoring it until it went away seemed a bit more foolish. So I immediately booked an urgent doctor’s appointment – scheduled four weeks from now. Four weeks! That’s a long time. What if they fall off before then. So Danni told me to put into practice the tried and true method of checking the MyGP app every hour of every day waiting for a cancellation. On Thursday night, a result materialised, an opening at 10am the following day. Phew!

So after a week of consecutive nights of RP and event prep, and on the morning of the final round, I toddled off to my second home of the GP surgery and prepared myself for inspection. Having never had any trouble of this kind before, I didn’t know what to expect from myself. But after years of speaking pretty openly about my mental health struggles I think I had conditioned myself to prioritise the important things (after months of ignoring them). So I went in completely relaxed about the whole thing and the subsequent physical examination.

That was until the doctor, who was very nice, found a particularly tender spot and immediately stopped to tell me to pull my trousers back up. Those seven or eight seconds felt like an absolute eternity. Suddenly I wasn’t relaxed any more because there was something. I felt it. He felt it. Not an emotional connection, though that arguably comes with the territory, but a physical thing inside my body that was causing me pain.

Finally he spoke, and got the important bit out first. There were no worrying lumps or bumps, explaining that testicular cancer is quite common in “our age group.” I got taken aback by that part. Despite the constant roulette of staff that takes place in my GP surgery, I suppose I’ve almost always had older doctors and he did appear to be around my age.

Before I could go down this existential path further, he explained what he believes he did find – an enlarged vein. I had heard of varicose veins, but had never put much thought in to the possibility that I, or anyone, would end up with one there. He said that I would require an ultrasound at the hospital to confirm the diagnosis and what severity it is.

Apparently 15-20% of men have these, moreso in those with fertility problems. Mostly harmless and often not requiring treatment – unless they are causing pain and discomfort. Oh. But this is causing pain and discomfort, and I have to tell you reader, none of the proposed surgical options necessarily come across as inviting. But, I am thankful that at least for now it seems my ignorance wasn’t masking anything more serious. Though he did admit it shouldn’t be causing my need to constantly pause streams to run to the bathroom – so they are throwing in a blood test for diabetes just to cover all bases.

But that was that. Relief at knowing what it was that had been weighing me down these last few months. Frustration that I am once again left waiting for a resolution and thinking about things at the start of the one time of year I really don’t want to do much of that. Anxiety about the prospect of a future procedure. But the show must go on, and that night the finale of Los Santos Fashion Week did go on. Another welcome distraction, indeed. One of countless many that Let’s RP has provided over the years and one that I am extremely grateful for.

So don’t be like me, kids. Don’t make yourself the mayor of a virtual city and bury your heads in garbage collection and transit networks at the first sign of trouble. Check your balls or other body parts of choice instead, just in case.

Now I can get on with my life as your favourite content creator with an enlarged vein in his left bollock. Please do think about that next time I’m on camera and our eyes meet across the virtual divide. It will bring me a spark of joy.

TW: Death

Last week I had to say goodbye to my Grandmother.

It could be said that we have seen it coming for the last two years, but only two weeks ago I was still taking her shopping every Sunday and seeing her up and about. When I left work on the 14th, I had no idea that I would be told that was likely going to be our last weekend together.

My grandparents both shaped me. Although my grandad passed prematurely when I was very young, he had a lasting impact on my life. Memories of climbing the steep hill behind our house. His computer, littered with floppy disks that I still own to this day – including LOOM and Microsoft Flight Simulator. Our adventures to Blackpool to watch the go-karts.

After he passed, my Grandma put a roof over my head and made sure I stayed on the right track even when my mum became unwell for many years (she’s better now, thank goodness). She took me everywhere I needed to be, taught me valuable life lessons, made sure I was raised in a warm and loving home. She always made sure that I had a friend, even at time when I had few. Of course she is also the reason I must suffer as a Blackburn Rovers fan, but I’ll allow it as there have occasionally been good times.

Although the last two years of her life had some very tough moments and required a lot of changes, she defied expectations and kept soldiering on. Largely thanks to the exceptional care my mum was able to provide for her. When the inevitable finally caught up with her, she left the stage peacefully and with dignity, in her own bed in her own home. In our last conversation, she said it was beautiful how many people were helping her – and she was right. I can’t speak highly enough of the district and twilight nurses who were visiting round-the-clock in her final days.

They allowed her to spend her last two days sleeping peacefully. I spent her last by her side, watching historic Blackburn Rovers matches which she had attended in person and a compilation of 800 Lionel Messi goals. She wouldn’t have wanted it any other way. I replaced the bulb in her bedside lamp, put on her favourite Neil Diamond music and said my goodbyes that night.

The days that have followed have been a blur. My family is a tight unit. I’ve lost more friends than family since I was a child. The round-the-clock provision has suddenly vanished and the house is quiet. Moreso than it ever has been. I’ve spent most of the last week completely lost as to what to do. I got my first stress alerts from my watch during the funeral planning. I got the second when looking at Probate after discovering I had been named as the co-executor on her Will.

Beyond the grief, I’m suddenly afraid that we have a house that we can’t afford and unsure of what comes next for my mum. A great unknown is stretching out in front of me and I’m scared of putting one foot in front of the other in case I fall. Everything I once took for granted is suddenly illuminated in stark contrast.

I’ve spent a lot of these quiet moments reflecting and being grateful for what I had and still have to come. I tentatively returned to both civilization and video games for escape over the weekend, proving that good RP with good people is good for the soul. I’m looking forward to seeing Danni in a few days and soon marking a year since the launch of Let’s RP 3.0.

Despite it all, I’ve also hit my steps goal every day this month, so staying active and getting outdoors remains important to me. As does seeing the community I’ve spent so long helping to build continue to evolve and succeed, even as once familiar faces drift away and brand new ones take to the spotlight in their place.

Nothing I have done, seen, experienced or achieved would have been possible without my grandmother. I owe her more than could have ever been repaid. But I take comfort in knowing that, at the end, I feel I did all that I could for her.

My car accident, losing my dog and then my grandma has made this unquestionably the most difficult 12 months of my life. But I put my faith in those around me to help me through, as always, and back myself to take those next steps in to an unfamiliar world.

Hello readers and welcome back to cd93.co.uk. The internet’s last bastion of Future Cop LAPD sympathisers.

This will be a familiar tale to those who have followed my activities on Twitch over the last five years, but as the anniversary of my time with Grand Theft Auto roleplay approaches, I felt it worth reflecting on.

In 2007, I booted up the magnificent Star Trek Voyager: Elite Force roleplaying modification for the first time and connected to my first Star Trek RP server. I don’t remember which server it was exactly, maybe Federation Roleplay (because before LRP, there was FRP), but I do know that the map was the USS Poseidon B. Yes, it had been preceded by the USS Poseidon A. Was there just a USS Poseidon, no bloody A, B, C or D?* I’m not too sure.

(*that’s a reference to the television series Star Trek: The Next Generation)

But materialising in the Poseidon’s transporter room was a daunting moment. There was no voice chat, yet it was no less intimidating than joining a server full of unknown players today. This was at the height of the scene’s popularity and the server was full. A quick hit of TAB and a glance over the player list proved that.

So what did I actually want to do here? Where could I slip in unnoticed (as though the console hadn’t announced my arrival to everyone already). Well, for one reason or another I decided that Sickbay would be my first port of call. I quickly changed my name, rank and skin so that I could be an unassuming Ensign assigned to the Medical team. Very bold of me to throw a pip on my collar for my first roleplay session, I know. But out into the metallic grey halls, into the turbolift and down to Deck 16 (I’ve retained the wrong knowledge in life) I went.

Stepping in to Sickbay, I made an immediate and astute observation. It was empty. So was the hall. So was the turbolift. So had been the transporter room. This was a full server and the chat log was active with conversations happening, so where was everyone? Well, another glance at the TAB menu revealed the truth. It seemed that most of the crew was on Deck 1, specifically on the Bridge. Not wanting to be punished for defying a clear all-hands mandate, I doubled back on myself to the turbolift and clicked the hell out of the Deck 1 option.

The doors slid open with a familiar Star Trek stock sound effect and revealed a large number of officers gathered on the Bridge, the command centre of the ship. Another rapid analysis flew through my brain. Everyone was holding a coffee cup. Not wanting to be left out, I scrolled through my default inventory and quickly equipped a coffee cup of my own. The effect on immersion was devastating. I hadn’t visited the Mess Hall. I hadn’t used a replicator. I just pulled this piping hot caffeinated beverage out of my ass in a turbolift. Nevermind, we had to fit in, continuity be damned.

This being a text-based communication system, the Bridge was silent beyond the comforting hum of the ship’s engines providing the background noise to the pings and whirls of the various computers and interfaces around the room. So glancing at the chat log, I tried to get myself caught up on what was going on at this Starfleet coffee morning. But at this point, only one player was type-talking. I don’t remember their character name, though I’m pretty sure it began with a ‘J,’ but I know it was prefixed with a bright red ‘CO.’ This was the Commanding Officer of the ship, the Captain, and the leader of this roleplay session.

You see, that’s how it worked. Outside of scheduled, planned roleplay sessions – some featuring a serialised storyline playing out across one session a week in the same timeslot, just like the TV shows – any player could join a server and lay claim to the CO spot. In the majority of cases, this meant that this player was volunteering to be the story-lead for the server. They would ‘whisper’ to other officers with prompts to move their story along. For example, they could whisper to the Operations Officer that their ship was being hailed by an alien vessel. The OPS officer would then announce this, with room to improvise, and everyone would react accordingly. One great big revolving wheel of ‘yes, and’ as all good things are.

This meant that across every server, at multiple times throughout the day, you got to experience somebody else’s story. Their vision. Their creativity. If they wanted, they could log on to an empty server, vote for a change of map to a Bird of Prey and set up a Klingon roleplay session. You never knew what you were connecting in to, but most of the time you were just happy to play along because it was Star Trek, it was cool and most importantly… there was just nothing else like it.

For the cream of the crop, you looked to the Serial Roleplays (or SRPs – we like our three letter xRP abbreviations in this space). These roleplays took place at the same time every week and were structured like an episode of the TV show. They had a title, episode names, special server configs, music packs and even sometimes opening credits using the in-game announcement system. These took planning and a commitment to long-term storytelling. Not everyone wanted to run these or commit to being a part of them. But it was the ultimate reward for those willing to invest the time and the payoff was often spectacular.

I also knew that’s what I wanted to do. So I did.

Within three months I had a Serial Roleplay of my own. Saturday nights, 6pm. Each session two hours long, each ‘season’ consisting of twelve episodes. I had to plan for three months of storylines at a time on and off for years. To say this, combined with incessant amounts of Garry’s Mod, impacted on the remainder of my education and early career would be a remarkable understatement. But I’ve always been involuntarily juggling an abhorrent amount of projects in my mind at once, even if one of them absolutely takes over the others from one moment to the next. No offence to my current employers, but I still spend most of my working days thinking about roleplay.

But what a privilege. To have ten, fifteen, sometimes twenty or more regular players come back again and again for stories that I had written. To see ideas typed on a Word document breathed into life by other creative people and excited players, new and experienced alike, was a thrill. The type I get now when a video project I’ve planned and slaved over for a couple of weeks is released.

Since those heady days, this world has only got more popular and accessible. The platforms and tools at the disposal of roleplayers and storytellers have continued to evolve. From forums and text, to voice and livestreams. From bite-sized machinima to feature-length cinematics. Even today, there are still lessons to be learned from the imagination and ingenuity required back then. But all of us can be fortunate to have the chance to do what we do now.

There is no singular Commanding Officer at Let’s RP. We’re all the Captain now.

From every faction leader and business owner to every news reporter and taxi driver. Every player has the opportunity to create stories and opportunities for others to follow, shape, engage with and enjoy. Whether it’s a scene, story or experience which sweeps away two other players or twenty, every contribution to our ever-developing world is valuable and should be something to be proud of.

I’ve heard players at Let’s RP lament about their ability to only play once a week or for a couple of hours a week, feeling as though they aren’t making a difference or contributing enough. Back in the day that was seen as the norm for some of the top roleplayers and storytellers in the business. Because people will wait for you. Some players create more memorable moments and set up more interesting story threads in two hours than I can do in a fortnight (took me three attempts to spell that right, thanks Epic. This wouldn’t be a problem if you had just kept making Unreal Tournament instead).

Thankfully, the ever-constant in my roleplaying career has been a sense of community propelling every project and storyline along. No, it hasn’t always been perfect. No, everyone involved in a story or group hasn’t always seen eye-to-eye. No, it isn’t always easy. At Let’s RP, that has been no different. But there have been few problems that haven’t been able to be resolved by the community collaborating to make the experience better for everyone.

I have been involved in video game roleplaying communities for over eighteen years now and seen a lot in the almost two decades of my life and brain space devoted to making the most of what we have with any given game at any given moment (there’s a whole other post that could be devoted to Jedi Knight Academy RP alone… and let’s not even talk about GMod Stargate Space Build. But boy was it cool to fly around Atlantis in a puddle jumper). Communication and the trust that everyone around you is working in good faith have always been key to a successful project, and that type of space fosters creativity and incredible storytelling.

Because if not to collaborate, if not to create and take part in stories, what would we all still be here for and investing so much of our time in to? When you strip back the cars, the MLOs, the money and the gold, storytelling is the bedrock of everything we do. Without it, there is no Let’s RP. Every graphic or video project I’ve ever worked on is utterly meaningless without it, and I would happily trade away all the fluff and flair if it meant keeping those stories coming… and those stories come in all shapes and sizes.

In this world, every player and character has a story to tell. Whether it’s personal to them or puts them in the spotlight for the whole server to see and engage with. It could play out over the course of an hour or over the course of a year. No player should feel discouraged from any perceived limitations on what they feel they are able to contribute. Your ability to make others think, laugh, cry and love is priceless. That’s the power of storytelling. It all counts and it is all valued.

One day these two decades will be behind me. One day these years with Let’s RP will be a memory. We never know when a chapter is going to close, so all that matters is what we do with the time that we have. Because one day the story is all we will have left.

So don’t waste this incredible opportunity. Tell your story.

As for what the Captain of the USS Poseidon had to say to all of his caffeine-addled crew back in 2007? Who the hell knows, my memory isn’t that good. But whatever it was… it was bloody captivating, and I’ve remembered him and that little moment ever since.

I wish I could tell him that.

Hello reader!

When last we spoke, Let’s RP had just launched its RedM BETA. What has happened since then? I’ve put a considerable amount of hours back in to Grand Theft Auto, of course.

A lot has happened. I decided to call it quits from spending most of my life thinking about creating content for roleplay servers and instead focus on enjoying just playing on them. The pace of Red Dead Redemption supported this slow-down. At the same time, I was enjoying doing my own thing with what I was streaming or recording from my time on the Let’s RP server.

The video series of my time with Francisco Fuentes is one of the things I have become most proud of since entering this space. An almost mini-series like tale with a complete story arc, which required an adaptation to my editing style in terms of tone and pacing. It was also just some of the most immersive roleplay I have ever been part of.

I made an early decision that my Red Dead character would cross the San Luis river in to New Austin on launch night, giving my viewers a natural introduction to a new and unknown world – as well as having a reason to set up camp and drive RP in New Austin despite much of the initial action taking place in New Hanover and West Elizabeth.

Exploring an unfamilar landscape without using the in-game map. Reuniting a brother and sister who had been separated. Hunting and being hunted by strangers and freaks in the wilderness. Learning of witches and (definitely real) mythical creatures who wandered in the night.

It was also potentially a last hurrah for the style of roleplay highlight videos I had been making for the past four years.

What I didn’t know at the time of labelling this “Act 1” was that any successive acts would have to wait. Behind the scenes that I was no longer privy to, the decision had been taken to wrap the RedM BETA and return the Let’s RP community to the streets where it was raised – Los Santos.

When the opportunity came to return to the fold and step in to a similar role as I had for the FiveM server previously, I was in the midst of spending a lot more time outdoors. A foreign concept, but one I was taking very seriously. I also had to question whether I was the right person for the job after a crisis of confidence before the end of FiveM 2.5.

But, the opportunity was a good one. The chance to roll out a soft reboot of the brand and the chance to continue working closley with my partner Danni and many other talented souls who I can call friends. I also thought back to how I felt editing the 2.5 Finale Promo.

Sifting through the footage of what was going to be our final FiveM event and storyline conjured up genuine emotions for everything we had accomplished together. The players we had brought together. The characters we had formed together. The stories that had been developed and entwined to all come together for this one climactic and apocalyptic experience. By the time I was finished editing it at around 1 or 2am, I was seriously asking whether this was really going to be the last time.

For as much as I adore Red Dead and enjoyed the RedM BETA, I’m glad that it wasn’t.

There are times when releasing a video that you wish you could be sat in an auditorium filled with your intended audience. That’s somewhat how I felt when deciding to open the FiveM 3.0 announcement video with a little Red Dead fake out – despite not knowing whether the moment would land or not!

But the real moment of the video wasn’t that. It was the re-reveal of the iconic Los Santos skyline at sunrise. A new dawn. Despite only being away for six months, it may as well have been six years – and that’s how I wanted it to feel. Both for those players who joined us for RedM and those players who did not. All the potential and possibilities for new characters and new storylines condensed in to one image. The colour palette of that one shot would go on to form the basis of the rebrand.

We had all been around the block numerous times before, so I felt that for the relaunch to earn legitimacy from the outside, this all had to feel fresh. To cement that, it was very important that the subsequent video we put together featured the Spice Girls, of course.

As the team worked incredibly hard to bring Let’s RP 3.0 together, we produced a series of videos highlighting new and reworked features that would be available at launch. Despite the work this entailed, my mind kept coming back to one element which hadn’t been settled on. The loading screen.

This is the first thing new players see and hear when connecting to the server. I have always seen it as an opportunity to both set the tone for what was to come and reward players by highlighting their characters and scenes. I have personally found many servers loading screens to be overly loud, obnoxious and completely unrepresentative of the brand or product they were attached to.

While it was ultimately unused, the package prepared for RedM had been a fun opportunity to run with a completely different style than I was used to with FiveM. Returning to Los Santos, I needed something to continue the ‘fresh’ vibe and before even thinking about the video itself, we needed a new theme. I spent many hours trawling through music tracks and nothing was clicking. In practice, I’m sure many of the tracks I considered and rejected would have been absolutely fine – even good – but nothing was passing the “I’ll know it when I hear it” test.

I expanded my search from familiar soft house offerings to jazz and ultimately funk. It was here that a recommendation was offered up to me from a Swedish music collective called Spring Gang. The track builds nicely, almost ethereally, which offers opportunities beyond just the loading video. But when the core of the track hits, it all comes together.

Immediatley I could see the refreshed Let’s RP logo exploding on to the scene. Sunrises over skyscrapers. Sunsets over beaches. Bank vaults and cat cafés alike bursting with energy. I knew it when I heard it – and when clips of streamers reacting to it came to light, the choice was vindicated. Thank you, Spring Gang.

Beyond all of this prep work, there was another question lingering in my mind. What the hell was I going to do when the server actually launched? With Francisco Fuentes gone and having been so satisfied with the conclusion of Jay Walker’s story after years of him being my main character, I had a decision to make.

Bringing back Wolf Myers was a relatively late decision and one I questioned even after “announcing” it with a teaser video for our use of Weazel News. The original version of the character was so strongly built around his belief in the extraterrestrial – with his story and mythos allowed to develop far beyond my wildest dreams – there was no saying whether it was worth bringing him back with a new backstory.

But with a few tweaks, his just-about-over-the-hill nature could make him work as a news anchor / producer trying to keep old media running in a new media world. I’ve certainly had a lot of fun both playing him again and tackling the journalism roleplay from a new angle. Thankfully I am so strongly supported by a group of amazing roleplayers doing most of the legwork (just as it was with the San Andreas Park Rangers).

I did another character, however. One that sounded more like me. One that could replace Jay Walker when my vocal chords needed a rest.

Toward the end of the RedM BETA – and featuring in a whole single Twitch stream – I introduced the character of Riley Winfield. He was a young man from Valentine who was going to be my RedM introduction to the news business. He also happened to be an excuse to give my voice a rest from playing Francisco for so long. I was excited at his potential and that of finding ways of reporting the news of 1899 without the use of a mobile phone and the internet.

His story may have been cut short, but I did really like the name. When creating a FiveM 3.0 teaser video on changes to how food businesses operate, I quickly – and accidentally – put together a character for the video that didn’t look too far removed from Riley Winfield. With a few tweaks, this look would be the basis for Riley’s official introduction to FiveM.

Armed with a black rose cardigan and matching trousers, contrasted with a mint top and peach Jordans, the new Riley had his signature look. But then I had to decide who he actually was and what he would actually do. Originally I landed on the concept of a young aspiring actor, landing in Los Santos to explore the dizzying heights of Vinewood. But what use would that ultimately serve? What was the endgame? After thinking about it some more, I ditched this idea.

But Danni had already planted another seed in my mind. During my time with FiveM, I had amassed over 30GB of screenshots. I’m always taking pictures – for work and for fun. Why not work what I’m already doing in to the character, in the same way making videos and reporting on server events was worked in to Jay Walker (and now Wolf Myers)?

Riley Winfield would be an aspiring photographer and photo editor. He would charge a modest fee for other characters to have their portraits taken and charge businesses for covering their events and promoting their products. Perfect!

I also decided it was an opportunity to do something I had never done before – work in a food business. Proto-Riley had worked at Burger Shot, after all. For real, though, I aimed for a job at the UwU Cat Cafe – where I had watched Danni work for so long and had also been quite sad to blow up during the Savala Strikes storyline having been such an iconic location.

Thankfully after a conversation with would-be UwU owner Celeste Loveheart played by Pearly, this came to fruition and I have tremendously enjoyed my time taking orders, preparing food, checking stock and otherwise engaging with so many players and characters who visit the cafe whenever it is open. I’ve even started using a Point of Sale app on my iPad, customised with the UwU menu and colour schemes, to take orders to cut out the math involved. Completely unnecessary but I think it’s fun!

Due to my working patterns, I had a window of a few weeks to be on the server a considerable amount and often during the day when I would otherwise be unavailble. Due to the success of 3.0 and with numerous players on the server during these hours, it was an opportunity to open a food business for them and get more RP at times that previously might not have been possible. This allowed me to workshop the character very quickly and allow him to become well known in a short space of time.

Despite being intended to just sound like me, I started subconsciously introducing quirks, stutters and inflections in to Riley’s speaking patterns that I did not plan for. I ran with this natural evolution which only enhanced how it felt to play him while allowing him to step out of Jay Walker’s shadow.

It may still be relatively early days, but I think Riley Winfield has been allowed a solid foundation to work from and I’m very much looking forward to seeing where Let’s RP 3.0 takes him and I.

At the point of writing this post, Let’s RP has real momentum. We have welcomed many new players to join us on this new journey and even reconnected with many old players from my first FiveM experience who I did not expect to see involved in this space again. The development team also have very exciting plans for the future.

While my professional life is about to disrupt my pawsagna making time with a vengeance, I’m nevertheless thoroughly enjoying my RP again and hope that I can continue to meaningfully help and contribute to the project alongside the Senior Staff team and Content Team once more.

Exploring the deserts and plains of New Austin was a new, valuable and satisfying experience. But it’s good to be home.

Well, here I finally am, writing something on this blog of mine.

Who writes blogs any more? More pertinantly, who starts a blog in 2025? Someone with either too much or too little time on their hands.

In this case, it is the desperate act of a man who has spent the past hour staring in to space paralysed by choice as to what I could be doing while finishing this bottle of wine on a Saturday evening. So long as the choices involve staring at a screen.

Therein lies the problem, most likely.

You see, I have a twitch. Or rather, two twitches. Of my eyes, specifically. What started as an inconvience toward the end of last year is now a daily source of frustration. I know that getting annoyed with the twitch will only make the twitch worse. But that’s not a great motivator.

I tried giving up caffeine. That didn’t help. I tried 8pm bed times, those didn’t help. I’ve tried trading games for art and trading screens for books. That didn’t help. Not least because I didn’t keep it up for very long.

I’ve drank the extra water, eaten the bananas, taken the supplements. None of that helped. For the last ten months I’ve cooked and eaten better than I ever have in my life. Has that helped? Doesn’t feel like it.

So now I drink the wine, eat the chocolate, play the games and hope that a doctor will do more next week than tell me to keep an eye on it. Seriously, if they actually tell me to “keep an eye on it” then I might not be responsible for the scene that I shall cause.

In truth, I probably am more stressed than I accept. It has been a horrendous 12 months but the highs have papered over the cracks of the lows and I’ve recently been without the biggest distraction of all. But now that has changed.

Last Friday, Let’s RP launched the RedM BETA server. Although I can’t pretend that I had much involvement in the last run up to launch compared to most of the staff team, it still feels like a milestone – finishing the fight since we produced our first teaser in December 2023.

Our final pre-launch LIVE preview on Twitch was a lot of fun. Such is the nature of the Let’s RP community that even a catastrophic wagon failure could just be laughed off like it never happened. After being too nervous to stream my previous Mexican character in FiveM more than twice, I’ve done nothing but with my RedM counterpart.

I’ve put out over thirteen hours of content with him in this first week so questionable accent aside, I think it’s safe to say I’ve overcome that particular fear. Whether any of it is any good we’ll find out in time, but for now I’m enjoying a new pace of roleplaying and adapting to that style in the editing suite.

Switching from Jay Walker to Francisco Fuentes highlight videos could bring on a case of whiplash. I’m told the RedM community values long-form, slow-burning stories. So hopefully they enjoy long conversations on horseback about the mythical jackalope. While I have one eye on the future and how best to contribute when our BETA period ends, for now I’m enjoying returning to an earlier style and workflow.

Roleplay tends to put everything else on the back burner. No doubt amplified moreso with a new server launch. But I’m going to try and ensure I have a better balance this time. I still want to finish our run of Nightfire Reloaded. I still want to play more Battlefield to satiate me until I get invited to Battlefield Labs (I can squeeze it in, DICE, I promise). Hell, I even downloaded Star Trek: RPG-X for a trip down memory lane. We’ll definitely get to that at some point.

I also spent some time tinkering with the Let’s RP website. First and foremost to transition from a GTA website to a Red Dead website. But also just to see what’s possible now that I have a little more WordPress experience under my belt. It’s a lot of troubleshooting and trial-and-error, but I enjoy the challenge and discovery.

In truth, the most frustrating thing is wanting to do all of these things in the 4-5 hours of time allotted on weekdays to do it. Only a few years ago that felt like an awful lot more time than it does today. Time compression really does kick in the moment you hit 30. Not helped by the inconveinece of muscle spams, back strains, heartburn, stomach cramps and crippling fatigue that haunt your every waking hour. I’m only 31 for goodness sake. I’ve got to put up with decades more of this – and it’s going to get worse?!

Don’t worry, I’m not going to complain about my fragile body in every one of these posts. If there are any more of these posts.

If I could get away with popping on some soft jazz and spending all of my free time following Procreate tutorials to make lovely little landscapes, I probably would. Perhaps then my twitch would go away. But I feel I would still be burdened by the notion of having left too much undone. So instead, I’m going to open up Photoshop and start working on something else I’ve been thinking about for a while.

Or maybe I’ll just watch a movie. Or play a game. Or scroll Bluesky.

Or…