VintageBeef, Creo, and the Hermits have been working for the last few weeks to figure out how to get y’all more cards so you can build your HermitCraft TCG decks for head-to-head play, so I’m excited to finally be able to share details about the upcoming second printing of the HermitCraft TCG booster boxes!
Here’s the details:
The pre-order window for the second printing will run from December 15th–January 15th.
There is no cap on the number of pre-orders we can print, so if you’re desperate to expand your collection, skip the scalpers and order from the source!
The second printing boxes will be the same price as the first printing ($50 USD), but will also include an additional pack of item cards to help y’all assemble playable decks easier.
Cards will now include rarity indicators printed on them to help players following certain deck-building rulesets to determine if their decks are tournament-compliant.
The second printing will fix an error with the common FalseSymmetry card, so if you have a first-printing copy of that, hold onto it!
Other than those two changes, there won’t be any changes to the art from the first printing.
The Hermits won’t be signing any 2nd printing cards before they’re packaged, but I hope you’ll consider meeting up with us at gaming conventions and card shop events so we can sign some in person for you!
I’ve just gotten settled with my TCG cards and markers at PAX Unplugged’s FreePlay table 49E, between the E3 and E8 pillars. Stop by until 1pm if you’d like to trade cards, play HermitCraft TCG, take a photo with me, or get something signed.
It’s Tommy time! Community Liaison ThatTommyBoii reporting for newsletter duty!
I hope you’ve had a good month, and that November goes even better for you. Let’s see what’s in the news!
PAX Unplugged panel
I wanted to remind folks that Joe will be doing a panel with fellow Hermit VintageBeef at Pax Unplugged on December 3rd! They’ll be talking about the HermitCraft TCG so if you’re interested you can buy the Sunday badge to check out their 2:30pm panel in the Mothman Theatre (Grand Ballroom A).
Or you can attend the whole convention! Tickets are still on sale on their website here, we’d love to see you there! Yes, that was a “we”! I’ll also be in attendance, I’m so excited to meet more of the awesome people that make up our community!
If you’re unable to attend but would still like to see the panel, it will be livestreamed on this twitch channel.
HermitCraft TCG update
To everyone who purchased the HermitCraft TCG from Creo, thank you so much! There has been an update from the company about the status of shipping the cards! You can take a look at the full notes over here on Reddit.
The main takeaway to share from Creo is the following: “Our revised target is to have everything in the mail by the week of Nov 6th. “
2023 Q4 Quarterly Meeting
A reminder to folks, our next quarterly meeting is on Saturday, November 18th at 1pm US Central time. I will see folks there and as always stream it to my twitch channel for folks to watch it live. The VOD and meeting minutes will also be made available for folks at a later date and time.
Folks are encouraged to submit any agenda item requests to the Joe Hills Meta > #next-quarter-new-business-agenda-requests channel.
With October coming to a close our Haunted Mansion build contest has ended! There were some really great builds from our community, I hope everyone had a great time!
If you want to see the unbelievable skills you can check out this VOD!
Winter Snow Globe Build Contest
This contest will be launching on November 18th during petitions, so if you want to be in the know of the snow, be sure to attend!
A quick summary of this contest is that folks will be making snow globes in marked plots. It will be an ongoing contest until Saturday, January 20th at 1pm US Central time. I’m sure when the rest of the details are released they’ll be very… cool!
DS9 event schedule
DS9 Petitions
Saturday, November 18th, Noon US Central Time.
DS9 Petitions
Saturday, December 9th, Noon US Central Time.
DS9 Petitions
Saturday, January 20th, Noon US Central Time.
Winter Snow Globe Build Contest
Saturday, January 20th, 1pm US Central Time.
October Everstorm closes
Here are all the obituaries reported for October:
Grit died like he always does on Everstorm, panicking and afraid.
May died as she lived, among piglin and feeling like her heart was leaping out of it’s chest.
eclogues was chased by skeletons into a hole, where a zombie ate what little brains he had
Arthr was too distracted by the prospect of a wolf friend to notice the creeper intersecting with them
Centuritron got in a bit over their head looking for diamonds, and suffered a fall due to Warden related injuries.
quilavabucket fell into a larger, less friendly bucket of lava while contemplating spooky mods
ruffboi was killed by a baby zombie who somehow managed to escape their zombie farm
No survivor’s posts yet for October’s Everstorm!
November Everstorm opens
This month Everstorm is getting a little more hands on! The only details I have to share are that pvp will be enabled and the server will be running the bending mod. Fans of Avatar the Last Airbender and/or Legend of Korra will enjoy this month for sure! Though I wonder what else is changed?
New Toxxic server
If you missed it, server operator ToxxicGlitter was creative lead on a creative server to test out the new building mod Axiom! It was really cool but now we’re getting ready to shut it down and bring you The New Hotness, a Vault Hunters server!
We don’t have an official launch date yet, as Iskall needs to first release the modpack and then Joe needs to spin up the server as per Toxxic’s instructions. I can tell you that it will be up within the first half of November, it will be modeled closely after the Hermit’s configuration, and will even use the same seed!
The end date is also not yet selected, but we guarantee the server will be up until the end of February 2024. A date will be finalized by the 1st of February, so have fun hunting vaults when you still can!
Pinball FX Weekly Tournament
After some discussion with some top pinball players, Joe has decided to wrap up the half year series early in favor of a monthly series! This will work similarly to the half year series, but instead of the best 15 standings counting to the final placings, we’ll be using the scores of the 4-5 tournaments per month.
Before we get to the weekly results, here’s the final winners with the full results available here!
Congratulations to ToxxicGlitter for taking first, Joe Hills for 2nd, ButterFlyGirlKMC for taking 3rd, Laxmi13 for 4th, and jsParker for 5th!
October Winners
Week 14: Star Trek: The Next Generation results are available here and the winner was ToxxicGlitter!
Week 15: Monster Bash results are available here and the winner was ToxxicGlitter!
Week 16: Creature from the Black Lagoon results are available here and the winner was Mr. Hardluck!
Week 17: Addams Family results are available here and the winner was Joe Hills!
Congrats to our winners for their awesome pinball skills! Here’s what you can expect to play during November!
November Series
Week 1: Twilight Zone
Week 2: Hurricane
Week 3: World Cup Soccer
Week 4: Road Show
Who will be our first winner? Only time will tell!
Vault Hunters
I’m sure folks have noticed the new modded series the Hermits have been playing! Joe’s been having such a great time playing Vault Hunters with everyone that he’s made a playlist for folks to watch! You can find that that playlist over here.
Also, there’s a Vault Hunters website! Did you know that? Cause I sure didn’t! Take a peek over at https://vaulthunters.gg/
HermitCraft 9 Videos
If you somehow have missed all of Joe’s episode the past month, no worries, I’ve got a link to where we left off since the last newsletter! There’s a ton of episodes to enjoy thanks to Decked Out 2 from TangoTek! If you haven’t seen Joe’s runs yet or if you want to watch them again, here’s the HermitCraft 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!
It’s Tommy time! Community Liaison ThatTommyBoii reporting for newsletter duty!
We come to a new month so that means it’s time for another newsletter! We’re jumping straight in today!
PAXU and other conventions!
Want the chance to meet Joe at a convention? Here are some of the events he’ll be attending!
PAX Unplugged
Joe will not only be attending PAX Unplugged this year, but also holding a panel with fellow hermit VintageBeef!
The panel name is HermitCraft TCG: physical blessings of a digital world. Here’s the description!
Two Minecraft Let’s Players, Joe Hills and VintageBeef from the HermitCraft server, will share how their experiences making gaming videos prepared them for new adventures in the physical (or unplugged, wink) world. VintageBeef recently created a full trading card game in survival Minecraft, HermitCraft TCG, which was popular enough to justify physical production of over a million printed cards. Joe Hills, who helped him playtest the game, will lead him through a lively chat about the challenges of the playtest art direction and production pipeline for the TCG.
The two Hermits will also discuss other ways their work on HermitCraft has rippled out into the real world via charity events and audience meet-ups. If time allows, questions will be taken from the audience.
Isn’t that exciting?! I know I’d be thrilled to attend, I hope I can make it to PAXU this year! All of the details are being finalized, so for now I can offer you this tentative date, time, and location (subject to change):
Sunday, December 3rd at 2:30pm in the Mothman Theatre (Streamed to Twitch.tv/PAX2)
Music City Multi Con ticket sales are open now! Get your tickets over at their website here so you can join in the fun!
Spring dates for TGD have been confirmed, so folks interested in attending can start putting that on their calendars! Here’s an overview of all the conventions!
Gamers Outreach Children’s Hospital visit and Go Kart update!
Joe has an episode out where he talks with Scar about his visit to a local hospital that received some of the go karts funded by the Gamers Outreach charity stream back in October last year!
You can find details and pictures available in the video, but as a quick summary, folks will be happy to know that the fundraising was a huge success and has already vastly improved the lives of children in hospitals across the United States. Gamers Outreach have even found ways to improve the karts in the future as they continue to help kids feel a little more joy in their lives.
Our last B’Hala outpost build contest, oh my! This parade float build contest was in celebration of Carl Garner Federal Lands Cleanup Day, here’s a VOD if you missed it!
Thank you to team Warden Hunters for hosting! That’s a wrap on the B’Hala parades! Thanks everyone who hosted, and participated!
Haunted Mansion Build Contest
Even though our B’Hala parade build contests have ended, we still have the Haunted Mansion build contest! This was announced live at our August 2023 DS9 petitions, so here’s a refresher on the details!
Teams will build a haunted house mansion and landscape around it
The last day to build is Friday October 20th as the build window closes at the strike of midnight US central time, ticking into Saturday, October 21st. Judging will be later that very day at 1pm US Central time.
Your haunted mansion must be built at least 3000 blocks away from 0,0. Command blocks for teleporting far out are available inside the snowy mountain donut near spawn.
The goal is to be remote, and to also get a feel for what kinds of things you might learn from the experience to provide good feedback for the teleport system
There are otherwise no hard and fast rules, this competition is very loose! Everyone will get to present cool haunted houses that explore both the interior and exterior.
Winter Snow Globe Build Contest
This contest won’t launch until mid-November, but I thought a reminder would be helpful. If you can’t participate in our haunted mansion contest, worry not, there’s still our winter one!
So far the only details are that you can expect a specific build location with marked plots to build a winter landscape snow globe. The plot sizes will vary to allow different sizes of teams. The rest of the contest details are being withheld until the contest launches as we want everyone to have the same time frame to design builds for the contest when the time arrives.
Judging is scheduled for Saturday, January 20th at 1pm US Central time.
DS9 event schedule
DS9 Petitions
Saturday, October 21st, Noon US Central Time.
Haunted Mansion Build Contest
Ongoing until judging on October 21st, 1pm US Central Time.
DS9 Petitions
Saturday, November 18th, Noon US Central Time.
DS9 Petitions
Saturday, December 9th, Noon US Central Time.
DS9 Petitions
Saturday, January 20th, Noon US Central Time.
Winter Snow Globe Build Contest
Saturday, January 20th, 1pm US Central Time.
September Everstorm Closes
With the month coming to a close we also close the September Everstorm. The From the Fog mod was definitely our defining MVP mod of the month, but here’s a list of all the mods added that made September so terrifying.
betterthanmending-1.3.0.jar
‘Book Of Experience 3.1.0.jar’
dungeons-and-taverns-v2.1.4.jar
everything-is-dirt-2.1.jar
fabric-api-0.87.0+1.20.1.jar
fabric-seasons-2.2.1+1.20.jar
From-The-Fog-1.20-v1.9.2-Forge-Fabric.jar
geophilic-v2.0.0-mc1.20u1.20.1.jar
HorseBuff-1.20-2.1.2.jar
Here are all the obituaries reported for September:
May was shot by a skeleton whilst trying to escape spawn.
eclogues was expertly handling a creeper when another creeper came from nowhere and blew up.
Arthr got bested by a creeper while investigating the ruins across the water.
MJ was doomed to fall fleeing from a skeleton he never even saw. That’s what he gets for coming out of the cave.
ruffboi did his best, but the creepers did better.
fancytoy got overwhelmed by a group of zombies while trying to secure a couple geodes.
quilavabucket died getting tag teamed by a skeleman and a zombie while stream watched.
Moonroses4u traveled 3000 blocks in a search for cactus. Two zombies cornered her, one with a sword. She leaves an unnamed horse with gold armor.
Centuritron succumbed to a Zombie with the aide of their old nemesis, a Creeper.
MagentaAvocado found the ravager in the mirror was closer than it appeared.
Beyr33 never saw the wither skeleton that killed him.
NJ went exploring for charity, rode the lightning but was skewered by the trident-wielding drowned.
The survivors of September’s Everstorm share these final reports:
Gritmonger was a consummate coward and risked nothing in trying to stay safe and stockpile resources in two-block-high bunkers.
Void raided dungeons, built a Skulk island, and decided to kill the dragon before the end of the world.
Kindalas almost died. Almost.
October Everstorm opens
October may be the scariest month of the year with Halloween as it’s crown jewel, but we already got our horror quota filled from September! This month you can expect a more welcoming spooky experience. How can this be? Well the only hint I can give you is that this iteration will be using the StarterKit mod on the server side to give folks a Halloween basket and treats when they first join. Please enjoy!
Pinball FX Weekly Tournament
If you’re interested in the tournament standings you can find that here. These placings are calculated on a player’s best 15 scores out of the whole series, so come and see how you can do! Here’s how folks held up in September’s weekly tournaments results!
September Winners
Week 9: The Machine: Bride of Pin•Bot results are available here and the winner was ToxxicGlitter!
Week 10: Theatre of Magic results are available here and the winner was ToxxicGlitter!
Week 11: Safecracker results are available here and the winner was ToxxicGlitter!
Week 12: Champion Pub results are available here and the winner was Joe Hills!
Week 13: White Water results will be available in the discord when the tournament closes out at the end of this week.
Congrats to our winners for their awesome pinball skills! Here’s what you can expect to play during October!
October Tables
Week 14: Star Trek: The Next Generation
Week 15: Monster Bash
Week 16: Creature from the Black Lagoon
Week 17: Addams Family
Do you have what it takes to join the ranks and climb to the top of the standings? Play pinball with us to find out! Details are under Activity-Sign-Ups > #weekly-pinball-challenges.
HermitCraft 9 Videos
Whoa, so many videos came out in September! Joe’s been spoiling us with it all! I don’t want to clog this newsletter further with video embeds, as not including the Gamers Outreach video linked above, there’s another 10 videos!
Instead, you can follow this link here that will take you to Joe’s HermitCraft Season 9 playlist. It’s conveniently placed right at the video after the charity update episode, so you won’t miss anything! Woohoo!
Streams and other content
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!
Get in the Halloween mood!
Do you want some spooky Halloween themed videos to get you in the mood for the holiday? You’ve come to the right place! These videos here have been selected by Joe for their seasonally appropriate themes and ambience.
Enjoy these classic Joe Hills videos!
So long for now…
Phew! What a long newsletter! Lots of love and care went in to crafting this for you lovely folks out there reading this! I hope you enjoyed, and if you’re celebrating at the end of this month, have a happy Halloween!
This has been TommyBoii reporting for newsletter duty.
It’s Tommy time! Community Liaison ThatTommyBoii reporting for newsletter duty!
Welcome to our new monthly newsletter! Old and new readers alike can use this resource as a means to get all the news happening with Joe and his Patreon discord server! Without further ado, here’s the news!
Hermits return!
Joe’s been so excited to play more HermitCraft with his friends! You can see Joe playing Xisuma’s new Bedwars game, and on his team returning to the server is Hypno! I can’t recommend this episode enough to folks, take a look!
Joe’s also excited to see Iskall and Stress on the server again! You can check out their videos linked below, be sure to give them a warm welcome back!
These are worth checking out for information on how we operate the discord and for our upcoming build contests!
A quick update
I also wanted to take a moment to let folks know that since the quarterly meeting the staff have had one of our monthly meetings and have started cooking up our next wave of Minecraft servers.
They will have complimentary but not identical structures for handling complaints and conflicts so players with different play-styles will still have a home here. We recognize that one method of conflict resolution will not work for all types of players.
For more conflict averse players we will have a high tempo resolution system moderated by Yirggzmb on her more relaxed Vanillish server.
More aggressive play-styles will be optimized to problem solve amongst themselves on ToxxicGlitter’s Modded server, with Toxxic stepping in when necessary.
The Flagship Vanilla server with Joe as creative lead will continue in season 10 with a monthly petition approach somewhere in the middle of the previously mentioned servers. There will now be more accessibility as TommyBoii (that’s me!) will serve as a proxy for folks who feel they are unable to raise issues themselves for any reason.
The only confirmed date we have right now is the last day of Toxxic’s 1.19.2 Create Mod server. That will ending on October 2nd. More information will be announced in the near future, so keep an eye out for that in October’s newsletter!
Minecraft Servers
DS9 parades
August had only one parade held, and what a parade it was! In celebration of Independent Worker’s Day, folks built all kinds of floats on the Deep Slate Nine server! Here’s the VOD for anyone who missed it!
We have one last parade to hold at our B’Hala outposts, and it will be for Carl Garner Federal Lands Cleanup Day! The parade float build contest is hosted by Team Warden Hunters.
If you’re interested in participating you can join everyone on Saturday, September 23rd at 1pm US Central time. Be sure to bring enough materials to build your float, you only get 1 hour to build!
DS9 event schedule
DS9 Petitions
Saturday, September 23rd, Noon US Central Time
Carl Garner Federal Lands Cleanup Day, hosted by Team Warden Hunters
Saturday, September 23rd, 1pm US Central Time
Haunted Mansion Build Contest
Ongoing until judging on October 21st, 1pm US Central Time.
DS9 Petitions
Saturday, November 18th, Noon US Central Time.
DS9 Petitions
Saturday, December 9th, Noon US Central Time.
DS9 Petitions
Saturday, January 20th, Noon US Central Time.
Winter Snow Globe Build Contest
Saturday, January 20th, 1pm US Central Time.
August Everstorm Closes
Here are all the obituaries reported for August:
Magenta could not fend off the pillagers and the trident-wielding drowned at the same time
SuperStone was cornered in a cave by a heavily-enchanted skeleton.
ChefNutmeg was sniped by a skelly lighting up the nether fortress.
Ellas died to a tree climbing drowned, they lasted about 20 minutes
Eclogues withered away due to hubris
ruffboi died as he lived: ridiculous and easily jumpscared by creepers.
Beyr33 went out with a bang by falling 1900 blocks after killing the dragon.
seanard shot the moon and then landed in the void.
Gritmonger got blown up by a creeper while campfiring-up random villages to provide safe havens for people using return horns from the end.
The survivors of August’s Everstorm share these final reports:
Centuritron logged on to check out the server, didn’t know what to do, then logged back off alive.
SalemOleander was briefly enthralled with the random mining gifts, and made it out in one piece.
DottyMatrix decided that Everstorm was the right place to learn how to endbust for the first time, and returned with her own wings to tell the tale.
quilavabucket used this Everstorm to get over a fear of hardcore and successfully ran a deep dark city and fought the dragon.
Kindalas successfully built a starter house on the ruins of Magenta’s Starter House.
Laxmi13 needs to take more risks because she didn’t die building a house, mining, or fighting the dragon.
Mantuamaker found a hole and just kept digging.
MJ missed the Dragon fight because of sushi.
WizardOfDocs spent several happy hours mining for loot chests, and for all we know is still there to this day.
September Everstorm opens
Since August’s Everstorm was so well received Joe has resumed his creative lead role with more assistance from his 10 year old kid providing creative input! Together they have prepared 2 months of autumnal excitement for you to enjoy!
One feature already announced is use of the Horse Buff mod! With the server-side version you can expect to see fixes to horse movement when running up blocks and inclines. If players install the mod client side as well it will increase the speed at which blocks are broken when on horseback, so that’s cool!
PVP is off but no other details have been released. Joe keeps saying something about this being the most terrifying Everstorm ever, and that things are glitchy and weird. I have no idea what that all means; Can you figure out what’s happening there?!
Better be quick about it too, as this iteration ends on September 28th!
Pinball FX Weekly Tournament
If you’re interested in the tournament standings you can find that here. These placings are calculated on a player’s best 15 scores out of the whole series, so come and see how you can do! Here’s how folks held up in August’s weekly tournaments results!
August Winners
Week 5: Whirlwind results are available here and the winner was ToxxicGlitter!
Week 6: Junkyard results are available here and the winner was ToxxicGlitter again!
Week 7: Black Rose results are available here and the winner was ButterFlyGirlKMC!
Week 8: The Party Zone results are available here and the winner was Laxmi13!
Congrats to our winners for their awesome pinball skills! Here’s what you can expect to play during September!
September Tables
Week 9: The Machine: Bride of Pin•Bot
Week 10: Theatre of Magic
Week 11: Safecracker
Week 12: Champion Pub
Week 13: White Water
Do you have what it takes to join the ranks and climb to the top of the standings? Play pinball with us to find out!
HermitCraft 9 Videos
If you missed the episode that came out before the Bedwars video, no worries! Here’s episode 69!
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!
Update! Music City Multi Con ticket sales are open now! Get your tickets over at their website here so you can join in the fun!
TGD Fall registration is closed but you can still join their waitlist if any spots open up! Spring dates for TGD have been confirmed, so folks interested in attending can start putting that on their calendars!
I hope you enjoyed our first monthly newsletter! I think the structural changes it provides gives a more concise way to access information at once. It’s certainly easier to write it this way!
As always we welcome feedback under Joe Hills Meta > #feedback-newsletter. I look forward to writing for you next month!
This has been TommyBoii reporting for newsletter duty.
Wow what an incredible parade! If you’re interested in the work folks put into this parade check out this VOD! If you’re not already a member and are interested in joining us for our next parade you can join Joe’s patreon to support him and gain access to our minecraft servers. Our next parade is the last one at B’Hala!
Thank you to team Deztiny for hosting!
If you don’t have time to watch the VOD something exciting to note is that Quinn and Joe plan to record a new version of Quinn’s song Lines. This is inspired by server member Phali’s club dance remix, so keep an eye out for that!
DS9 event schedule
DS9 Petitions
Saturday, September 23rd, Noon US Central Time
Carl Garner Federal Lands Cleanup Day, hosted by Team Warden Hunters
Saturday, September 23rd, 1pm US Central Time
Haunted Mansion Build Contest
Ongoing until judging on October 21st, 1pm US Central Time.
DS9 Petitions
Saturday, November 18th, Noon US Central Time.
DS9 Petitions
Saturday, December 9th, Noon US Central Time.
DS9 Petitions
Saturday, January 20th, Noon US Central Time.
Winter Snow Globe Build Contest
Saturday, January 20th, 1pm US Central Time.
Everstorm obituaries
Folks should note that August’s Everstorm will go down on August 31st! This is because Everstorm cycles will now align with monthly newsletters, so be sure to get your obituaries and survivor’s messages sent in a timely manner!
Magenta could not fend off the pillagers and the trident-wielding drowned at the same time
SuperStone was cornered in a cave by a heavily-enchanted skeleton.
ChefNutmeg was sniped by a skelly lighting up the nether fortress.
Ellas died to a tree climbing drowned, they lasted about 20 minutes
Eclogues withered away due to hubris
Pinball FX Weekly Tournament
Week 7: Black Rose
Congratulations ButterflyGirlKMC!!! First place this week was well earned, fantastic!
Week 8: The Party Zone
Come play some pinball with us! You can join in this week by using the code available under Activity-Sign-Ups > #weekly-pinball-challenges!
Tournament Standings
The standings for week 7 are not yet available, but once they are you can find them on this page.
You can also see how your best scores compare and where you place in the full tournament! Take a look at that over here!
Streams
Upcoming Streams
Great news for fans of variety streams! Joe will now have a semi-recurring “Thursday Night Overflow” stream on twitch! If you’re interested be sure to check out the streaming calendar to stay up to date on when those cool streams will be!
You can see a calendar of all Joe’s upcoming streams over at the new page here!
Notable streams
V Rising with Badger!
Crafts stream!
TCG Tuesday!
Upcoming conventions
Music City Multi Con tickets sales have still not opened. TGD Fall registration has closed but there is a waitlist available to join. We still have a tentative date for Spring TGD.
I’m sad to see the weekly newsletter go but I look forward to seeing you in the new monthly newsletters! Thank you to everyone who kept tabs and provided feedback and contributed to making this newsletter the best it could be. I couldn’t have done it without your support!
This has been TommyBoii reporting for newsletter duty.
in season 8 hermits spent months going through seeds, hermits would check to see if the seeds were truly viable and it drove them bonkers
when it was time for season 9 the hermits had a hermit staff member pick a seed for them.
Joe didn’t get to plan his season 9 and neither did we in DS9.
Joe wants season 10 to be more of a collective experience for us, so these two build contests will help test things for season 10
Joe will still be creative lead, but this is our time to test out Joe’s ideas so no one has to be startled and blindsided by them.
a few explicit changes, a lot of early season stress was from small world borders. Joe likes being able to promote his server as a bleeding edge flagship server. we’re not part of conversations of updates when we aren’t immediately up to date on updates.
when hermits talk about problems the number one thing is people arguing about how soon is too soon to update. Joe can put up with the hermits spiraling for 6 hours but not his server too.
Joe’s compromise is #feedback-vanilla-smp
Proposal 1: update to the latest jar asap and when available, additionally add quality of life and performance mods
Joe wants to test a game mechanic that is new in snapshots. We will have it in time for season 10, a feature of random numbers in command blocks.
What if: we have a command block that gives you the feather falling effect, teleported you 300 blocks in the air a random set of blocks along the cardinal directions
Proposal 2: At server launch we will prepare for 2 hours and then fight the dragon
Proposal 3: Once the dragon is dead Joe will add 8 cardinal and secondary direction teleporter pads with command blocks that will allow players in small groups to get thrown thousands of blocks away without a teleport back until the end of the contest.
Proposal 4: At server launch a 3 month build contest starts for folks to create neighborhoods. Similar to B’Hala outposts but bigger and without neighbors.
The theme would be “company town” from a mining town to industrial factory town to space settlement, towns are required to have a main street for parades and places for employees to live and places to buy and sell things, but folks get to decide what their theme is.
In the short term everyone gets to have the survival Minecraft experience. folks who join later after the initial contest can join existing towns or pick a direction and go somewhere new if they want to start something new.
Joe does not want to encourage centralized planning of nether tunnels
Joe wants the free stuff at petitions to slow, the goal of petitions is supposed to be a problem solving thing.
Joe recognizes that if someone is using something in a way that upsets other people it is a problem we are here to address
Have a focus on talking about things to be able to move on
DS9 multi-month Halloween build contest that has started as of 08/19/23
teams build a haunted house mansion and landscape around it
Contest ends late October, tentatively the 21st.
It must be at least 3000 blocks away from 0,0
The goal is to be remote and get a feel for what kinds of things you might learn to give good feedback for the teleport system
No hard and fast rules, very loose, but everyone gets to present cool haunted houses that explore the inside and out.
Another build contest will launch in mid-November. A specific build location with plots for a winter landscape snow globe build contest.
Plot sizes vary for different sizes of teams and would be judged sometime around January 15th.
