Newsletter #9 for May 31st, 2022

Howdy, y’all!

Joe Hills here, writing as I always do in Nashville, TN! My family and I had a very busy and fun weekend in the sun, and I hope y’all had a chance to relax some too. Let’s jump out of the lake, and into this week’s updates!

Crafts with Cleo streams

Thanks for keeping me company last week while I transplanted my computer parts to the new case. Everything is fully tested and operational! In case you missed it, the VOD is available here:

And here’s the schedule for the next few weeks:

  • Wednesday, June 1st: color pencil pinball classic table layouts
  • Week of June 5th: no craft streams this week due to scheduling conflicts
  • Wednesday, June 15th: with guest and co-streamer Janey Laney, founder of BlackMinecraft!

Upcoming Quarterly Meetings

Our next quarterly meeting will be held on June 18th at noon,  preceding the 1pm server petitions session and 2pm HermitCraft mini-game field day.

Current agenda items:

  1. Patreon reward tier review
  2. Patreon community goals and rewards

If you have something you’d like to propose for the agenda, please post it in Joe Hills Meta > #next-quarter-new-business-requests. Thanks!

Community game nights

We’ve got quite a few game nights coming up next week, plus more further out this summer. I hope y’all consider joining us!

If you aren’t already a part of my supporters Discord community, you can join via https://patreon.com/joehills.

June 6th: Mario Kart 8 Deluxe hosted by Queen Dark Lady

Starting at 8pm US Central Time next Monday, Queen Dark Lady will be hosting two hours of Mario Kart 8 Deluxe fun for the community.

If you’re interested, please make sure you post your Nintendo friend code to  Activity-Sign-Ups > #june-6-mario-kart so QDL can add you in advance!

June 7th: Strider Racing on Deep Slate Nine hosted by NJCoffeeJunkie

Starting at 8pm US Central Time next Tuesday, NJCoffeeJunkie will be hosting strider races on the Deep Slate Nine Vanilla SMP server.

If you have any questions, please let NJ know in Activity-Sign-Ups > #june-7-strider-racing

June 8th: Gartic Phone hosted by ThatTommyBoii

Starting at 8:30pm US Central Time next Wednesday, ThatTommyBoii will be hosting a game of Gartic Phone for the community. It’s like a combination of Telephone or Whisper Down the Alley and Pictionary!

Learn more at Activity-Sign-Ups > #june-8-gartic-phone

June 9th: Avatar Legends RPG with Dungeon Master ToxxicGlitter

Our earliest game in the Hot TTRPG Summer series is actually the latest addition to the line-up.

Details to come, keep an eye on Activity-Sign-Ups > #june-9-avatar-rpg.

For info about the six other games in this series, check the Activity-Sign-Ups category.

June 18th: HermitCraft mini-game field day

We’ll be visiting some old HermitCraft mini games on June 18th immediately following petitions June, with an estimated start time of around 2pm US Central.

Please RSVP in the Activity-Sign-Ups > #june-18-field-day if you plan to attend so we can prepare games properly sized for the crowd. Thanks!

Minecraft Servers

We’ve got plenty to share about all four server this week!

If you’re not already playing with us, you can join via my Patreon at https://patreon.com/joehills at the $10+ level!

Coming soon: Vanillish server!

Server Operator Yirggzmb hosted a call last Monday about the upcoming Vanillish SMP server. I listened in and it was fantastic hearing the community get involved with this project!

At the conclusion of the meeting, she presented me with the parameter below for the server’s initial state. It’ll be up to y’all and Yirggzmb to continue to make decisions about how the server should play throughout its lifecycle.

While Yirggzmb is the creative lead for this server, I’ll still be serving as technical administrator and be responsible for installing new packs and configurations per her instructions.

To gain access to early test releases for the 1.19 versions of these data packs, I’ve subscribed to the Vanilla Tweaks Patreon and have been very impressed by their team’s professionalism and diligence. I’m optimistic that the packs necessary to launch this server will be available by mid-June, and I look forward to seeing what y’all build!

Yirggzmb’s Server Setup Parameters

Game Rules

From https://vanillatweaks.net/picker/resource-packs/:

  • Difficulty: hard
  • Keep Inventory: on
  • Fire Tick: off
  • Sleep: single player
Datapacks

From https://vanillatweaks.net/picker/datapacks/:

  • Armor Stands
  • Player Heads
  • Mob Heads
  • Anti-Enderman Grief
  • Fast Leaf Decay
  • Silence Mobs
  • Spawn Teleportation
Recipes

From https://vanillatweaks.net/picker/crafting-tweaks/:

  • Back to Blocks
  • Zombie Leather
  • Universal Dyeing
  • Straight to Shapeless crafting

If you have any questions or concerns, please let us know in Realms-And-Servers > #tbd-vanillish-next

Deep Slate Nine

Minecraft 1.19’s launch date has been announced for June 7th! I already had family plans in the first half of the week, so the earliest feasible maintenance window for the server will be June 9th-10th.

B’hala build contest updates

Teams may sign up until June 7th, and final build locations and coordinates will be assigned when the server is updated later that week.

May/June Potential loot table additions

Based on May petitions, the following items will be added to the B’hala loot tables for the first month of resets.

  • Unenchanted elytras
  • Spore blossoms
  • Bundles
  • Sponges
  • Allay spawn eggs
  • Gilded blackstone
  • Enchanted Nautilus shells
  • Heart of the Sea
New Expeditionary teams

Here’s the teams that signed up since the last newsletter:

  • The Society for the Conservation of Prehistory: a modern, governmental, and brutalist styled outpost, registered by MewonsAway
  • Holland: a tulips, windmills, canals, and old-fashioned stone and wood buildings styled outpost, registed by StellarSpider
  • Gaymers: a Trans! continental railroad buildsite themed outpost, registered by Vin_hiJoe_shoken
  • Remote Anomaly Discovery Institute Co-op and Lodgings: a lego with space and castle elements themed outpost, registered by giljaxon
  • Warden Hunters: a dark medieval fantasy theme inspired by Mordheim/The Witcher, registered by Graehart

Deep Slate Nine May petition minutes

  • Kindalas requests a cat spawn egg for Mallora so she can start a cat store
    • Joe asks if anyone has comparable requests, Dahlia asks for a horse spawn egg
    • Text chat from multiple folks has no problems
    • Joe awards one husk spawn egg and one cat spawn egg and one cat record to each player
  • Kindalas requests a stack of spore blossoms on behalf of an unnamed 3rd-party
    • Joe is dubious that this is necessary given the world border is expanding soon, but Kindalas says this is to complete builds before then.
    • Joe awards 8 to everyone present for them to trade
  • Gritmonger requests an elder guardian spawn egg to offset lost sponges
    • Joe asks how this is different from cat egg, and Gritmonger says they’d cause more chaos than a dozen cats
    • Joe asks if anyone needs anything similar
      • Michaelsocks requests zombie, vindicator, and wither skeleton spawn eggs for a decked out build
    • Joe awards everyone present a zombie horse, vex, and wither skeleton egg
  • Madelinesocks requests player sleep percentage be lowered to 10%
    • Joe requests feedback and hears no opposition
    • Joe sets gamerule playerSleepPercentage to 10
  • Meep requests swift sneak and recovery compasses be made available via trader
    • Joe declines because ancient city loot will be relatively unconstrained due to Ancient City region file reset
    • 5thAlice has a similar question about allay eggs and Joe explains he intends to add those to the ancient city loot
  • MisterLantz asks about the 1.19 WorldBorder expansion
    • Joe answers that he intends to keep the Northern Border in place and expand East, South, and West

Experimental

Experimental May petitions minutes

  • QueenDarkLady requests two Tridents enchanted with Knockback X to deal with drowned on a terraforming project
    • Maahes0 offered four tridents were sacrificed toward the request
    • No one opposed the request
    • Every player online was awarded a trident 
  • Wizard of Docs requests discussion of additional mods
    • Suggestions:
      • Charm mod 
      • Concrete slabs and stairs or Concrete Plus
      • Chipped
    • Mods discussed were researched and added to the 1.19 update plan

Experimental 1.19 update plan

The server will update sometime after June 9th, when the following conditions are met:

  • Decorative Blocks is updated

The following mods will be added as soon as possible afterward:

  • Concrete Plus
  • Chipped
  • Charm

Everstorm

We’re halfway through Yirggzmb’s first Everstorm instance, and folks seem to be having a blast!

Emerald Storm and several others attacked the dragon live on stream earlier this week, and you can find the VOD of that at: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1311950648

Not everyone survived the week:

  • SuperStone couldn’t get his shield out fast enough to save himself from a creeper. Like a true gamer, his last words were “LAG”.
  • Elysia_VT died in the end due to fall damage after destroying the final crystal
  • mercurialvoid angered three endermen after just deciding to stop exploring the end at 6 am.
  • VeryLukely got lost in the end for two hours, went mad, and attempted a pearl jump no sane man would try to avoid doubling back again.
  • EchoFiveTwoFive somehow survived the dragon fight and end busting, but got reckless with her new wings and crashed into the mob spawner

Upcoming travel & conventions

Come hang out at any of the following events!

Until next time…

I always wrap up by thanking Community Liaison ThatTommyBoii for all his help with this newsletter, but this week was special because he’s preparing to publish newsletter 10 in my absence next week! Keep an eye out for that!

Until next time y’all, this is Joe Hills from Nashville, TN.

Keep adventuring!