Howdy, y’all! Joe Hills here writing as I always do in Nashville, TN!
My upcoming Lasertag arena is going to need a ton of coal blocks, so I spent most of tonight’s grind and read stream creating a stack-high wall of coal ore as wide as the shop itself.
Since I’m planning to create a neat time-lapse of placing and harvesting all this coal, I decided to place the wall just above the word “Hello” so I could have that in-frame for my render.
Since the Haste II beacon for the arena dig was at the bottom of the name tag, and the wall was at the top, my work area for the coal harvest turned out to be just out of range.
Moving that beacon underground to improve the look of the bunker entrance and widening it to accommodate additional effects had always been in my queue for this project, but this immediate need bumped it to the top of my queue. I centered myself on the top of the name tag, and dug straight down until I found a perfect spot for it in a tunnel just above the deepslate level.
I managed to fall next to the lava, not into it!
After that side-track with the beacon, it was a challenge to harvest each column in a predictably-paced manner that I think should make for a most excellent time-lapse in an upcoming episode.
Regarding the reading, I was able to complete those repetitive tasks while reading aloud chapters 73–77 of Moby Dick. The VOD is available below if you’d like to hear:
Howdy, y’all! Joe Hills here writing as I always do in Nashville, TN!
The POE POE have given the Hermits until the end of the month to finish our shops, so today I spent over four hours on a bonus HermitCraft 10 stream developing my NameTag shop, “Hello, my name is Lasertag.”
The core concept of the shop is that the lobby will have a place where Hermits can buy name tags, but the main attraction will be an arena for an asymmetrical team-based attack-and-defend PVP game. My layout design for the arena is still a very early work in progress that is out of scope for the shop month deadline, but I can share now that it will be inspired by the third area of the map CTF Badlands from Team Fortress, which I also enjoyed the Team Fortress 2 interpretation of.
Rough dimensions and terraforming
I love playing Etho’s Ravager Rush game in his froglight shop, but it always felt to me that the observation area could be more welcoming if it was directly accessible from his lobby.
When approaching this project, I knew that I wanted the ceiling to feature alternating layers of air and glass for a fog effect, but a real breakthrough moment was realizing that an extra-tall air gap in the layers of glass could serve as a a broad observation deck for the arena that’s easily accessible from the rear of the shop’s lobby.
There’s three meters between the floor and ceiling of the observation deck that overlooks the future arena.
Sorting the y-levels for the purple glass floor and ceiling there was the last step I needed to determine how deep I needed to dig out and add a grass roof over the lobby bunker.
This is only a rough terraforming pass, we’ll clean this up after all three shops are minimally functional.
Color and material choices
In terms of materials, I’ve decided to use coal for the black shell around the skybox and gathered six shulkers of coal ore from the chest beacons around my Hermit Holmdel area. As my entire coal supply will probably be required for this project, I also gathered some wood to cook into charcoal for fuel for future glass furnacinations.
I also finally selected team colors for the attackers and defenders in the mini-game. Green and yellow don’t appear in TF2, but in Team Fortress Classic they were used as colors for teams three and four in quad-team maps. Green and yellow are better-suited to a lasertag theme in Minecraft than red and blue because of the easy availability of high-visibility green and yellow froglights.
I decided to use quartz for the slabs and white interior accents in the shop. which led me to Impulse’s shop, which sells quartz at a rate of one stack of quartz blocks for 3 diamonds. Impulse’s grass shop sells grass at a rate of 1 diamond per stack, so I decided to text Impulse and inquire about dropping off 8 double chests of grass for 8 stacks of quartz. Until we hear back from Impulse, I’m using white concrete as a placeholder.
Looking forward
This is only one of three shops I need to finish by the 31st, so my plan for my grindy Moby Dick stream tonight is to gather materials for the entrance and shop area of this build.
Best case, the main lobby and bunker entrance door can be completed early this week so that I can shift my focus to the Wool Street collaboration and to my Tuff/Calcite shop.
Don’t forget, you can always keep an eye out for my next show via my streaming calendar at https://joehills.net/soon/
Until next time, y’all, this is Joe Hills from Nashville, TN.
I’m so excited to share that Lauryn and I are finally married!
Thank y’all so much for your support as we navigated the stresses of the immigration system! We did it!
Thanks as well to Judge Hayes, who is awesome, and I strongly recommend to any Davidson County resident looking to get married soon!
I’m gonna drop off the net for a bit to enjoy some time relaxing with my new spouse, so until next time, y’all, this is Joe (and Lauryn) Hills from Nashville, TN!
11yo, bored: why are we listening to this, don’t you have a stream to go do?
Me: this song from the turn of the century was arranged and performed in a very old-fashioned way, which is juxtaposed against lyrics about how modern the South had become, with the introduction of Mercedes and Nissan factories and Starbucks with “fat-free lattes.”
When another Hermit initially pitched the Hermit Permit concept to us over half a year ago, I immediately recognized that many viewers will want to experience these types of interactions, but any viable implementation for a Patreon SMP must be designed to scale differently from HermitCraft’s one permit per item system and must also allow individuals to opt in or out.
It took a few months to figure out the company town concept as a framework to allow permit scalability while also supporting another return of our seasonal parade float build contests. Due to the extreme secrecy expected by the other Hermits who worked on the concept, I was unable to involve others in the creation of these policies or directly ask for feedback on them in advance, but I’m optimistic that these will ensure my 10th Oreward Patreon server offers players an experience they’re unlikely to find elsewhere.
Policy
In order for 10thO players to determine their own level of involvement with roleplay that parallels the Hermit Permit system in HermitCraft season 10, the following policies are now in place:
As a server-admin sanctioned activity, recognized company towns may determine any mechanism they like for awarding shop permits within the geographical boundaries of their settlements.
Company towns may opt to offer as few (or none) or as many (exclusive or non-exclusive) permits as they like.
Players will be expected to respect these geographically-limited permits and not complain about settlements that don’t grant them permits.
Players will be expected to follow local rules and requirements set by company town leadership. If you don’t like a town’s expectations, find or found a different town to set up shop in.
If disputes around permits arise that cannot be settled at the town leadership level, these may be escalated for consideration at the next petitions and all parties involved can expect a fair hearing and proportionate response.
WARNING: Any player or group issuing any kind of shop permit outside the boundaries of their own recognized company town is acting outside of sanction. Should disputes arise from such unsanctioned permitcrafting and escalate to consideration at petitions, the involved parties can expect a disgustingly theatrical hearing and a discouragingly disproportionate response, potentially involving commands like /setblock or /whitelist. Intentionally inviting such a response is an unnecessary discourtesy that will likely involve both.
Anticipated FAQ:
Where can I get a better understanding of what sorts of roleplay opportunities these policies are intended to unleash?
My latest video features some fun negotiations with Doc and Keralis.
Other Hermits will be cooperating and competing in all sorts of fun ways later this week. Stay tuned.
Is it too late to register a new company town?
Nope!
Do you expect these policies to be well-received?
My expectations are that the player-base here will receive this policy in a manner that will correspond to how well the broader audience responds to HermitCraft’s implementation of shop permits. It’s a measured risk that commitment to the bit demands.
How can I opt out of this entire permit experience?
For a players who desire a distinctly less HermitCraft Season 10-like experience, I recommend our recently launched and much more chill Vanillish server, and our modded Vault Hunters server.
When will you be available to make clarifications or explain further?
I can field questions during my stream scheduled for Sunday night, and add them to this FAQ as needed for folks who miss the stream.
I tried to log in to EFTPS last night to pay my 2023Q4 estimated taxes and was surprised that they’ve revamped their authentication flow.
They now have three options for Multi-Factor Authentication, and I had to pick one and set that up before I could even get to the page to enter my EFTPS credentials.
The first option they have, PIV/CAC is only for federal employees, so that’s not helpful to me.
The next two options for everyone else are login.gov and id.me.
I looked at both options and login.gov seemed easier to set up quickly (and they’re not a private company that collects biometric data), so I’m gonna recommend them.
If you like processes, I took notes on my steps:
1. Visit https://www.eftps.gov/eftps/
2. Click the “MAKE A PAYMENT” button
3. Wait for a new page to load with three login options
4. Click the “LOGIN.GOV” button
5. Wait for the Login.Gov|Treasury page to load
6. Click “create an account”
7. Enter your e-mail address
8. Select English
9. Accept the Rules of Use
10. Click Submit
11. Check your e-mail for a confirmation link
12. Load the URL from the confirmation link
13. Enter a secure password
14. Set up MFA with your preferred methods (app-dependent and out of scope for these instructions)
15. At this point, if you were quick enough, it might take you straight to the EFTPS traditional login page, which still requires your old EFTPS enrollment credentials. If not, head back to the EFTPS page and click MAKE A PAYMENT and use your login.gov credentials and MFA now.
I would strongly recommend setting that all up now, and not waiting until January 16th, as this will be the first tax deadline this system was in place for and we have no idea how well the servers can handle the load.
Until next time, y’all, this is Joe Hills from Nashville, Tennessee.
It’s Tommy time! Community Liaison ThatTommyBoii reporting for newsletter duty!
We took a break off last month’s newsletter for PAX Unplugged and the holidays, thanks for being so patient, now let’s catch up on all the latest!
HermitCraft Season 9 draws to a close!
It’s hard to believe that the season is over! Starting back in March of 2022, the server reached a tender age of a year and nine months before ending. Don’t grieve this loss, and don’t rush forward for the next season either! Joe is not quite ready to say goodbye yet, as he’s still got some footage to edit and release throughout the month. You can look forward to that, but until then enjoy the world download!
Deep Field moves to stage 2!
While you enjoy the scale model pinball table from the download, Joe will be continuing to build it in real life! If you want to see it you can watch him do it live during his craft streams. Find out what times Joe plans to be live at joehills.net/soon!
If you’re curious about the materials and tools Joe will be using there is a spreadsheet available here for folks to follow along!
Music video release:
If you like seeing Joe in cool stuff, check him out featured in this music video! It’s definitely a fun watch!
PAX Unplugged panel
Speaking of cool stuff Joe has been featured in, Joe held a panel with fellow Hermit VintageBeef at PAX Unplugged! If you missed the event, you can enjoy the VOD of the panel over here!
HermitCraft TCG
If you enjoyed the PAX Unplugged panel, HermitCraft Season 9, or just like card games in general you can still get some! Booster boxes are still available for pre-orders until January 15th.
If you want a chance to play against other people, you should consider going to Tennessee Game Days! Joe and Quinn will be there, ready to battle any challengers. Do you have what it takes to win?
2023 Q4 Quarterly Meeting
We’ve got the VOD and minutes from the last quarterly meeting of 2023! You can find them on this page here.
Update! The Snow Globe build contest judging day has been moved! The new date is now Saturday, January 27th! The time is to be determined based on judge availability. I’m excited to see what folks build!
DS9 event schedule
DS9 Petitions
Saturday, January 20th, Noon US Central Time.
Winter Snow Globe Build Contest
Saturday, January 27th, 1pm US Central Time.
October Everstorm missing reports
The survivors of October’s Everstorm share these final reports:
Magenta built a lil house on the hill and survived by avoiding the sponges of doom
SuperStone explored the borderland of the Infernal Deep and the Eternal Storm, building riches in the shore of the river that runs through the rock
Moonroses built up spawn, attempted an iron farm that then fancy fixed, and survived a close encounter with a sponge.
Kindalas worked hard to summon the sponge wither without success.
Void almost died to a sponge due to curiosity and then decided to retreat to the safety of an ancient city
MJ mined a bunch of diamonds for the surface dwellers.
fancy didn’t do much but did fix an iron farm
Dotty will never look at a sponge the same way again.
Salem mined a lot and lives in fear of sponges now.
November Everstorm closes
Here are all the obituaries reported for November:
MJ is pretty sure that Husk had a mustache.
Arthr waterbent himself too far into the deep end and got impaled by a waterbending master (drowned).
quilava got blown to bits by a creeper while getting jungle wood for the seaside outpost
Magenta attempted to take on the sky dungeon as it claimed them as its victim
Moonroses perished by the axe of a Big Danger Castle denizen. She never stood a chance even with full gear.
Centuritron’s curiosity killed the fox, but ’twas no satisfaction to bring it back
The survivors of November’s Everstorm share these final reports:
Gritmonger’s curiosity did not kill him, against all odds.
CheftNutmeg was not sure she could really count it as work wise she only managed to get on for about fifteen minutes all month.
December Everstorm opens- and closes!
The Everstorm has come and gone for December already, folks seemed to not enjoy all the mobs that plagued their winter wonderland!
Here are all the obituaries reported for December:
ChefNutmeg logged on, got into a building, lagged out of the building, and died to zombie.
Moon ran into the forest and was never seen again.
Gritmonger was too confident in their ability to fight zombies, and didn’t remember they have always been a noob.
The sole survivor of December’s Everstorm shares this final report:
Centuritron logged on, raided a distant village, planted a potato farm, & forgot to log back in.
January Everstorm opens
This month’s Everstorm comes kitted out with lots of structure generating mods! Here’s a handy list for you!
Check out the mod’s pages linked above if you’re curious about it! It’s all server-side, no need to download anything to play! Just be a Minecraft level patron on Joe’s Patreon and join with the server information posted under Realms and Servers > #everstorm-jan-2024
Toxxic Vault Hunters server
Server Operator ToxxicGlitter is back with a fun new modded server! Using the same seed as the Hermits are using in their current Vault Hunter series, you too can run some vaults! The modpack and server information is available under SMP: Vault Hunters By ToxxicGlitter > #vh-setup, there’s also #vh-setup-help for if you need assistance installing the mods!
Pinball FX Weekly Tournament
November Winners
Week 1: Twilight Zone results are available here and the winner was ButterflyGirlKMC, congrats on 1st place! 2nd place goes to jsparker77!
Week 2: Hurricane results are available here and the winner was JoeHills, congrats on 1st place! 2nd place goes to Laxmi13!
Week 3: World Cup Soccer results are available here and the winner was JoeHills, congrats on 1st place! 2nd place goes to ButterflyGirlKMC!
Week 4: Road Show results are available here and the winner was ButterflyGirlKMC, congrats on 1st place! 2nd place goes to Laxmi13!
The full results are available here, now here’s the November series winners!
Congratulations to ButterflyGirlKMC for taking first, JoeHills for 2nd, jsparker77 for taking 3rd, and Laxmi13 for 4th!
December Winners
Week 1: Cirqus Voltaire results are available here and the winner was jsparker77, congrats on 1st place! 2nd place goes to JoeHills!
Week 2: Tales of the Arabian Nights results are available here and the winner was JoeHills, congrats on 1st place! 2nd place goes to Laxmi13!
Week 3: No Good Gofers results are available here and the winner was JoeHills, congrats on 1st place! 2nd place goes to Laxmi13!
Week 4: Indiana Jones results are available here and the winner was jsparker77, congrats on 1st place! 2nd place goes to JoeHills!
Week 5: Sword of Fury results are available here and the winner was JoeHills, congrats on 1st place! 2nd place goes to jsparker77!
The full results are available here, now here’s the December series winners!
Congratulations to JoeHills for taking first, jsparker77 for 2nd, Laxmi13 for taking 3rd, ButterflyGirlKMC for 4th, and Mr. Hardluck for 5th!
January Series
Here are the tables you can expect for January’s series!
Week 1: Whirlwind
Week 2: The Machine: Bride of Pinbot
Week 3: Space Station
Week 4: Funhouse
Vault Hunters
Even though Joe will be releasing his last episodes of HermitCraft season 9 this month, you can still enjoy the Hermits in their Vault Hunters series! Check out Joe’s playlist over here.
HermitCraft 9 Videos
Before the last of season 9 gets uploaded, make sure you’re up to date on all of Joe’s episodes! Here’s the HermitCraft 9 episodes playlist!
Streams
Upcoming Streams
If you’re looking for a place to find out when Joe is streaming, have I got the answer for you! You can see a calendar of all Joe’s upcoming streams over at this page over here!
Notable streams playlists
Crafts stream fans can enjoy all the latest arts and crafts VODs over at this playlist!
Wow that was a lot of updating and formatting and editing! As always, if you spot an error of any kind please let me know under Joe Hills Meta > #feedback-newsletter. Thank you, and Happy New Year!
This has been TommyBoii reporting for newsletter duty.
