Introducing The Shepp Program!

Hello, gentle Palians!

It’s been a busy few weeks over here at Singularity 6, and the hype train isn’t over yet! We’re thrilled to announce a new program that has been percolating here for a while at Singularity 6, designed to delight and uplift our incredible community - the launch of the Shepp Program!

"Within the world of Palia, Shepps are guides and mentors that help new villagers understand the customs and traditions of the new village they wish to become a part of."

This little piece of lore is a core part of our storytelling: even though our players come from different worlds with different histories, there is still someone in Kilima Village to guide them, answer their tough questions, and make sure that Palia feels like a home.

So then… what is the Shepp Program?

I’m so excited to tell you!

Early on, we realized we had something special on our hands: that even in our Pre-Alpha and alpha testing stages, our Discord server had grown from a loose-knit group of interested individuals and testers to a warm, welcoming community full of people excited to make new friends. It did not escape us that the most commonly used phrase to greet new players and testers was “Welcome home.”

We consider ourselves incredibly fortunate to have such a wonderful community, and quickly started daydreaming of ways to promote even more player involvement. We’ve already seen amazing things, from Fanart roundups to ‘Wikibot’ knowledge powerhouses - and we wanted to celebrate that. We want to build a foundation to grow and give back to the community even more, to build for the future, and acknowledge that Palia is as much about our community as it is about crafting furniture and catching insects.

And with that dream in mind...

Many moons ago, in our cozy little developer caves, we started building the Shepp program. We wanted to bring the feeling of Palia’s Shepps into real life, and give some of our most expert, trusted community members a badge of honor and pride. We wanted our Shepps to be people new and veteran players alike could look to as game guides, lore experts, gardening gurus, tech maestros, and trusted voices of the player community.

We’re launching this program with 52 incredible, welcoming Shepps across our community platforms! These people are game experts, guides, meme masters, and welcoming mentors who have volunteered to join the program and we are thrilled to honor them as people who have helped make our community really feel like home. You’ll see them around in most of our community spaces and, while they may not be on all the time, we trust that they’ll continue to provide incredible support and mentorship to any Palian in need.

An Update to the Shepp Program!

We are thrilled to announce that we are opening applications to the Shepp Program once again! If you’re jumping at the opportunity to celebrate and give back to the Palian community, please consider applying! They will be open until November 20th, 8:00 AM PT.

Palia’s community has grown significantly, and we’re thrilled by how many Palians from all over the world have welcomed each other home. Though we are limited in what language support we are able to offer in our official Discord Server, we know there are many wonderful places that feature and support languages other than English for Palians to gather and we want to celebrate them!

Therefore, to support our growing global community of players, we are excited to highlight and feature International Community Servers. We are inviting international server owners to apply to the Shepp Program and have their community be highlighted and featured on this website and in our official server.

International Community Server FAQ

• How many servers per language are you going to feature? At this time, due to bandwidth on the community team, we can feature one server per language.

How do you select which server you will feature per language?

• There are no “perfect” answers, but here are some things the CM team is looking for:
  • The server is founded to support a non-English speaking community of players.
  • The server has a strong, present moderation team with most active hours covered.
  • The server owner is interested in taking part in the Shepp program and building strong inroads between their server and the overall Palian community. The server owner is able to converse comfortably in English - this is to make sure they’re able to chat with the Community team!
  • We prefer the server to have existed for a bit, around two months is best, though this is a softer requirement - this is to help establish a track record of culture and moderation.
  • The server must adhere to Discord Public Server requirements, Palia’s Terms of Service, the Shepp Program terms, and the Player Code of Conduct.

Are you going to moderate, manage, or own these servers?

• No, we are not. These servers have already existed for a while, and are already owned and operated by people - our goal is just to highlight some popular gathering spaces in languages we cannot support in our official Discord server. Any issues that arise in these servers should be taken up with the server owners and not the community team. Singularity 6 is not involved in the decisions or actions taken in these servers.
• However, to be featured, they are expected to uphold the Palia Terms of Service, Community Guidelines, and Player Code of Conduct.
• If you have any questions about the above, please contact community@singularity6.com.

Do server owners have to be in the Shepp program if they want their server to be featured?

• Yes, they do. If you want to apply and you’re reading this during an open application period, head over to the Policies Page here for the application link!

Can I have my server featured if it’s not an international language server, but is organized around a smaller community within Palia, like Palia Fanart, Gardening, or Insect Catching?

• At this time we are not highlighting servers based around other community gathering points. We know there are many wonderful servers out there dedicated to Palia artists, Palia roleplayers, Hodari fanclubs, - the sky really is the limit! However, we’re able to support all of these Palia-related interests within our official server, and of course our International Communities can support these interests as well.

If you have any questions about the Shepp program - or you’re wondering what it takes to become a Shepp - please check out our Policies page here!