Petra Blackheart
God Queen of Sisika
Community Lead
Administrator
Media Engagement
Sheriff's Office
Whitelisted
Howdy! Welcome to our second community newsletter! We've got a lot to go over today, so let's jump right in!
Staff Changes
Please welcome Logan Clay to the Admin Team!As I come up on my four-year anniversary of joining the server (my very first experience with roleplay) I’m genuinely grateful and excited to now be stepping into an admin role.
I’m looking forward to getting stuck into some of our ongoing revamps, particularly around court and government RP, and helping push those areas forward. I’m also excited (perhaps a little too much) to come up with more dumb events for everyone to enjoy. Mostly i am looking forward to finding more ways to showcase the incredible RP talent this community has.
My DMs are always open! whether you’ve got questions, ideas, or just want to say hello. You’re never bothering me.Thank you,Avarey (Logan Clay)
Please welcome Charlotte Hallock to the Community lead Team!
I've been part of the community for over three years now, from player to Dev and now Community Lead. Each step has given me a deeper appreciation for what makes things work, and more importantly, what makes this place worth caring about.
What I'm most excited for is getting to talk with all of you more, throwing ideas around, hearing the sparks, and supporting the stories that bring our world to life. That has always been my favorite part of this community. The collaboration, the creativity, the progressing tendrils of concepts and characters, the "wait, what if we did this?" moments.
This place has always been at its best when players feel seen and have the space to create something together, and that is something I care deeply about protecting and growing. I'm looking forward to what we create together.
Thank You,
Violetile/Charlotte
Our Various Departments want YOU!
We have a great deal of departments and organizations within WWRP that are always looking for new faces who are passionate about delivering excellent roleplay experiences to their fellow players! We have quite a few to choose from, and we'll introduce each one so you can learn all about it!Bounty Hunters
Bounty hunting in WWRP is all about creating fun, player-driven roleplay. It’s not just about catching someone it’s about the chase, the tension, and the interactions along the way. Bounty hunters sit somewhere between law and civilian, which opens the door for some really interesting and flexible roleplay.Compared to the Sheriff’s Office, bounty hunters have much more freedom in how they operate. There’s no paperwork and fewer day-to-day responsibilities, making it a less demanding role overall. There’s also a strong sense of family, working together, sharing leads, and relying on each other out in the field.
It’s a great role if you enjoy tense standoffs, chases, and outsmarting criminals. You can build a reputation, create rivalries, and even become someone people genuinely fear. It’s all about jumping into the action when you want to and helping create memorable moments for everyone involved.
You can apply here
Law Enforcement (LEO)
The Sheriff’s Office in WWRP isn’t just about enforcing the law it’s about helping create fun, engaging roleplay for everyone involved. At its core, we’re here to support good storytelling, working with criminals and civilians (and each other) to build scenes that feel tense, meaningful, heartfelt and worth investing in. Whether it’s a routine interaction that escalates or a longer-running investigation, the goal is to give players something to react to and develop.We also act as a tool for conflict and engagement within the server. Conflict is one of the tools that keeps roleplay moving, and law enforcement helps shape that through chases, negotiations, standoffs, investigations and court cases. That also means being comfortable with taking losses, not every situation needs to end in an arrest or a perfect outcome. Letting things play out, even if it doesn’t go our way, often leads to better stories and more opportunities down the line.
At the end of the day, we’re aiming to create scenes and story arcs that people genuinely enjoy and remember. The Sheriff’s Office is here to help build those moments alongside the community, keeping things collaborative, immersive, and, most importantly, fun for everyone involved
You can apply here!
The Department of Prisons
The department of prisons is a whitelisted role where players can step into the shoes of a Sisika Prison Guard and help bring the prison experience to life. Guards play an important part in creating engaging, day-to-day roleplay for inmates, whether that’s facilitating visitations, organizing work details, or guiding rehabilitation and handling discipline.With the recent addition of the Lifer Whitelist, we’re excited to welcome new faces into the Department of Prisons and grow our team!If you’re interested in being part of a supportive and immersive roleplay environment, we’d love to have you join us.
You can apply here
Judiciary
The Scales of Justice don't tip by themselves, they require dedication, and a team mindset to ensure that the scales always balance.The Judiciary handles the legal parts of the community. It works alongside the Sheriff’s Office, giving them a system to enforce laws, and gives both criminals and civilians a place to be heard. It’s not just judges, but also lawyers and clerks - both of which play important roles in the community. Clerks in particular are responsible for a lot of the paperwork that goes on behind the scenes, including marriages, divorces, name changes, and even some organization of court cases.
If you want to get involved, but don’t want to jump straight into arguing cases or making rulings, becoming a clerk is a great start. There’s no legal experience required for administrative clerks, just a desire to help people out and the ability to meet with people and process paperwork. To apply, just check out the Judiciary Applications
Frontier Railways
Life on the road making you feel grounded? Why not try a life on the rails? Frontier Railways is always looking for new members to add to the team, it is an organization dedicated to the operation of the Railroad for passenger services, cargo transport, and more. The positions range from Engineers to service and operate the trains. Conductors to manage the operations, timetables, and customer interactions. As well as surveyors, clerks, track-workers, and even security personnel. It is a team environment and takes hard work and dedication to keep the engines running as smoothly, efficiently, and safely, as possible.Employees can expect steady wages, team building, and plenty of other challenges in their day to day employment with Frontier Railways. Your character can apply at our offices in:
- St Denis at the Train Station Office, by the double doors close to the tracks
- Valentine on the Counter Opposite of the Telegram Operator
- Armadillo at the Indoor Counter of the Post Office
- Annesburg at the counter to the left of the Postal Desk if you're facing it
Information about other Applications
Medical Apps
Want to be a Doctor, and have the ability to help others to their feet after giving second to none treatment? Then you can apply either in character with the Surgeon General (currently Apollo Alovich as the time of this newsletter), or you can open a ticket requesting them. Be prepared with knowledge of your character's medical knowledge and background! These mechanics are not required to be a Doctor in New Alexandria.Lifer Apps
Want to be a dastardly criminal who's earned a lifetime of imprisonment?! You can apply to make a lifer character, a Sisika Inmate who is serving a life sentence from start to finish! You can head here in order to see what all is needed to apply once you open your ticket! These characters provide roleplay to their fellow inmates, as well as the hard working Department of Prisons!Gunsmith Applications
Have the knowledge and want a character to be a gunsmith? Gunsmiths work on the firearms of the citizens of New Alexandria, and help deliver that personal touch that character's crave, between weapon maintenance, and making something really pretty. Interested? Well on and open up a ticket and ask for the application! Be prepared to prove your knowledge of the weaponry and practices, recordings of work done are very helpful!Player Government Update
One of the larger ongoing discussions lately has been the possible return of player government, and what that could potentially look like moving forward. In the past, government roleplay primarily centered around a governor system. While familiar to much of the community and capable of generating political storylines and conflict, there are questions about long-term engagement, expectations surrounding authority, and how government roleplay should function within the current state of the server. As a result, several different approaches are being considered.Governor System
One option is the return of a traditional governor role similar to previous iterations of player government. Under this structure, a player-elected governor would serve as a political figure for story purposes. It’s simple, with manageable implementation and maintenance requirements.
Discussion surrounding this option has also included maintaining clear expectations regarding the position's practical authority. While intended to support roleplay and community interaction, the role would not function as an administrative position or possess control over server systems, departments, or rules.
Local Mayors
Another option is the introduction of temporary or local mayor positions tied to individual towns. Under this concept, towns would not permanently possess government positions by default. Instead, mayorships could emerge through player petitions and local activity. Elections could then be held for towns interested in pursuing local political roleplay.
Mayors would primarily act as roleplay anchors for their communities, helping organize events, encourage local storytelling, and represent the interests and identity of their towns. While novel, this concept potentially requires more work to implement than prior systems, has some similar authority limitations to the governor position, and raises concerns about long-term interest and sustainability.
Both, Neither, or Something Else
Talks have also included the possibility of implementing both systems together, allowing local mayors to operate beneath a broader governor structure. There is also the question of whether formal player government is currently necessary at all. Before moving forward, we'd like to hear directly from the community regarding interest levels, concerns, expectations, and what players would most like to see from political roleplay moving forward. More information regarding feedback and discussion opportunities will be provided alongside an upcoming poll.
Judiciary/Court Update
Court is a very delicate balance, and is something we're still in discussion on. Our current focus is on Government Roleplay, and we want to ensure it is done right before moving onto another large project.Reminder about Voice ID
Just a friendly reminder, that we should not be using voice solely to identify characters. Not everyone is a voice actor, and we should always use what we know of that character before identifying them just based on the sound of their voice, variables like:- Can I clearly see them and identify the character's appearance?
- Are they trying to hide their identity?
- Are they identifying themselves as something different?
- Do I know you from somewhere?
- Who are you?
Photo Contest Review!
Here are some fun statistics for you all regarding the Bi-Weekly Photo Contest!Total Submissions: 299
Total themes: 31
Most Community Nominations: Adam Love ~ 4 Wins
Most Staff Nominations: Silas Ward ~ 4 Wins
Watching this event grow and flourish has been amazing for all to see on the media team, And getting to see everyone's amazing photos over every different theme has been a joy to see.
Most importantly, thank you to everyone who has participated in the contest—whether once, a few times, or consistently every round. Your contributions are what make this event possible.
Thank you from the bottom of our heart for all of your continued support and participation.
Meet the Staff Member
This is a fun new section we're introducing so you can get to know some of our other staff members and what they do! Let's open up with our members of the staff team, Nekra and Alexiswolf!Nekra / Petra
Hello! I am Nekra and I play the characters Petra Blackheart and Lucky Fortune! I've been a member of WWRP for the last 5 and a half years. I discovered the server during COVID and haven't left since! I am a Community Lead for the server, and most of my responsibilities have me engaging the community and maintaining that bridge of communication between our community and players, our staff team, and our management, as well as assisting with tickets and player reports.
When I'm not roleplaying or volunteering time at WWRP, I love to game, anything and everything, I have 2.5k hours in Dead by Daylight. I'm in the top 180 Archer Players Worldwide on Chivalry 2, and love gaming in general. Empathy is my super power and my kryptonite, and overall, I just enjoy making people smile and helping others to find their enjoyment!
Fun Fact! I'm not actually British!
Alexiswolf / Wenna
Hi, I'm Alexis, otherwise known as Wenna Loveday. I have been a member of WWRP since July 11, 2021. I have been a member of staff since May 22 2024. I have played a wealth of different characters here in WWRP, probably upwards of 10 but I honestly cant remeber them all anymore. I am a staff member, most of my duties revolve around Whitelist applications and helping with tickets as able.
I hold two secondary smaller side positions being, Media Team and Event Coordinator. I enjoy them both alot and I love seeing them bring joy to the community.
While I am not roleplaying or volunteering my time to WWRP. I love a lot of different games, at the moment the main one is Path of Titans, A wonderful dino game that I play along side a lot of other friends I have made from my time in WWRP. Along side that, I also play on our sister server quite a lot, and have grown to enjoy the RP in New Day as well.
Development
Recent Updates
Recently, we pushed some quality of life updates and user interface designs to help make things feel more immersive. Included in these updates were an overhaul to the banking UI, making it look more time appropriate and actually match the activity at hand. The library script gained some useful tools, such as category search and sorting options, as well as new reading tools - like page jumping, and a magnifying glass.We also have some future updates that we wanted to touch on:
- A new hunting quest board will allow players to go and hunt specific animals for additional rewards for the butcher.
- New activities and rewards available for prisoners imprisoned in Sisika.
- More regular horse rotations (we're talking, automatically rotating horses on a much quicker schedule).
- A gunsmithing menu overhaul which includes multiple bug fixes for gun customization.
Addressing Bugs and Bug Fixing Priority
We also wanted to take a moment to touch on something that comes up fairly often - bug fixing, and how we prioritise it. The reality is that not all bugs are created equal - and not all bugs are equally fixable. Some issues are relatively straightforward to fix when we can reliably reproduce them. Others are far more difficult, because they often happen inconsistently or rely on very specific conditions, or sit within parts of the framework that are outside of our direct control, or are incredibly difficult to work on as a result. On top of this, CFX is prone to pushing updates that make a lot of older code just... break, with no real roadmap to fixing it.
A bug fix often starts with a simple requirement: we need to be able to replicate the issue. Without that; we're effectively pushing possible fixes (which we can only do at server restarts), and then going back to the drawing board if we get reports that it's not fixed. There's also a lot of core systems that are handled by our framework - like weapons.
Using weapons as an example: yes, they have quirks. Ammo can behave strangely at times, certain interactions aren't as smooth as ideal, and there are edge cases that have existed for quite some time. But these issues often don't present themselves on dev-servers and are main-server exclusive, making them hard to fix without being able to test in real time. At the same time, it's worth noting that guns themselves are not non-functional. You can still use them, consistently, for their core purpose. That doesn't mean that we are satisfied with their current state, but it does affect how they're prioritized against issues that are completely blocking game play.
It can often come down to:
What is broken vs. What is imperfect?
Both matter - but they don't always get addressed at the same speed.
None of this is to dismiss the frustration felt by players. Long-standing issues can absolutely wear down the experience over time, and that's something we are aware of. A large part of the work over the past year - and continuing into this one - has been focused on gradually chipping away at long-term bugs where we can (bow issues, attachment rendering, gun-customization saving), whilst still keeping the game play experience fresh with new features.
Suggestions
We wanted to take a moment to talk about the suggestions section on the forums.
Suggestions are, and always have been, a really important part of how development grows on Wild West Roleplay. A lot of the systems and improvements that are available in-game started as player ideas or were heavily shaped by community discussion. We don't want that to change, but with that said - as the server has grown, the suggestions process has started to show a few cracks.
From the development side, one of our biggest challenges is that not every idea is feasible, no matter how good. RedM, the game engine, and our existing framework all have limitations that aren't always visible from the outside. These limitations can make a suggestion incredibly difficult to implement or downright impossible. This can lead to situations where a strong suggestion has to be declined, which understandably can make players without the technical context feel frustrated.
There's also a tendency for suggestions to get 'bumped' - short replies that are intended to bring a post back to the top of the list. While the intention makes sense and isn't inherently ill-intentioned, it doesn't actually help us prioritize or review things more effectively, and can make it harder to track meaningful discussion.
Another common issue is around clarity and scope. Some suggestions don't give us much to work on beyond a broad title idea, which makes it difficult to evaluate or build on. On the other end of the spectrum, some suggestions come with very detailed designs and expectations - which is great for inspiration, but can become frustrating if the final implementation doesn't meet the expectations of the vision supplied. And, like any open discussion space, there are times where conversations drift into arguments about what should or shouldn't exist on the server. While these discussions are important, sometimes they are not always handled correctly.
Right now, we're exploring ways to improve how suggestions are submitted, presented, discussed and reviewed. We do not have a locked-in solution yet, and we don't want to rush one out for the sake of it. At the end of the day, the suggestions forum is a two-way-street, but it is a development focused space. The idea going forward will be to make the process more useful for development whilst still allowing players to submit their ideas and suggestions.
Server Loading Screens!
Howdy there partner, Recently we have gotten some fancy custom WWRP Loading Screens. With those screens we are pulling screenshots from the bi-weekly photo submissions to compile our loading screens. We would like to hear feedback, and ideas from you! Be it ideas, questions, concerns, or you would like to assist with the creation of loading screens...Please fill out this form
Thanks!!
Q&A Answers
Here we will be going over the questions submitted to the last newsletter, and providing an answer to them!Q: What is this "brand new Criminal Tasks system" you mentioned in the newsletter? Please elaborate. I searched the forum and no mention of this system other than the newsletter post itself.
A: The Criminal Tasks system was a brand new system allowing a series of new mechanical crimes, which was added as a part of our 2025 community meeting surprise drop. You can find the changelogs for this update here: https://wildwestrp.com/threads/development-changelog-q1-q2-2025.40937/, by searching the page for "Crime Pays".
Q: How does the staff team intend to communicate with the community in the future? Will there be any changes or improvements made?
A: While we aren't perfect and haven't always gotten things right, we have been making changes to try and strive to better. One of the notable things we have done is change the way we handle changelogs. This started with a link to changelogs in the forums menu, and the update-changelogs channel in our community Discord server. This new channel is used to communicate bite sized summaries regarding updates, to get changes in front of players easier. Additionally, we changed the way we posted changelogs. Previously, changelog updates were made as page edits. This would exclude them from spaces such as "Recent Notes", and further prevent players from seeing new updates as they were released. Our aims are for our new community newsletter (in which this question is being answered) to bridge the gap on some of the other conversations and changes that we need to address with players and the community. We have also begun these very community newsletters to help improve engagement and keep the community informed of more changes and news.
Q: If players have IC laws they think should be changed, what should they do during the time that State Gov is closed?
A: This is a great question! Players are still encouraged to reach out to staff via a support ticket in the event that they have any government enquiries that they would ordinarily handle in-game with state government. In a similar vain, we have an in-character process for handling matters usually undertaken by the Secretary of Commerce (such as business license grants) which can be accessed via the support ticket system.
Q: What is the opinion of staff regarding use of Generative AI among the server community? Do you have opinions regarding moral objections to its use? (I.e. trained on stolen assets, environmental damage, taking work from humans, etc)
A: Generative AI has become extremely accessible, and it shows up in a lot of different forms and flavours. We encourage players to do their own research and form their own opinions on generative AI and the complexities around it. As it currently stands, Wild West RP staff do audit generative AI use within our whitelist application review process, as whitelist applications are designed to reflect the applicant's own ideas and writing as opposed to ideas generated by AI. When it comes to discussions within the community regarding generative AI, we would like to encourage players engaging in these discussions to exercise kindness with one another.
Feedback:
In my opinion, the negativity and confusion regarding the state gov shutdown was entirely avoidable. All that was needed was an OOC statement ahead of the announcement. Instead it created an environment of frustration and speculation across the server.
Firstly, we'd like to take the opportunity again to apologize for players regarding the lack of OOC communication from Management regarding this decision. We are aware that we missed the mark in terms of communicating these changes, and while there were an unfortunate set of circumstances that led to this misstep, it does not excuse our failure to handle it. We agree that we can and should do better, and the response from players has been invaluable as a learning opportunity so that we can strive to do better.
We received some questions about Court, and about Player Government updates, and have articles that address these topics and what information we are able to share right now, stay tuned for more!
There's no Q&A Link this time, as our next community outreach will be the Live Q&A which we will be posting the announcement for in the near future, it should be occurring around mid July!
That's all for now partners, thanks for reading! We'll see you at the next one!
