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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!

Keep adventuring!

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.”

11yo, alarmed: THERE WAS FAT IN LATTES?’

Introduction

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.

https://youtu.be/ukfGAPBu_qM

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.

How can I join your Patreon?

$5/mo gets you Discord access, $10/mo gets you Minecraft SMP access via https://patreon.com/joehills

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.

Keep quarterly estimating!

Maybe a decade ago, my friends and I did a parody for a Rock Band contest at PlayOnCon, which we called Phat L00t by Sum4d6.

Now, with the help of Pandemic Date Night, we’ve actually recorded the song for real and made a music video!

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!

If you’d like to be reminded when the pre-order goes live next week, you can sign up for the waitlist on Creo’s website.

To learn more about the process of creating the HermitCraft TCG, check out Beef and my Pax Unplugged panel, HermitCraft TCG: Physical Blessings of a Digital World!

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.