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.