Who are we?: We are a brand new SMP focused entirely on building an online community consisting of YouTubers and streamers playing semi-vanilla Minecraft. We are not Hermitcraft, but we are very much inspired by Hermitcraft. We are not, however, concerned with your subscriber count but we are most interested in finding the ‘right personality’ that would fit into our community and is active (or commits to being active) while producing family-friendly and (at times) semi narrative-based content in a fun and positive way.

What are we trying to achieve?: We aim to provide a platform on which we can build our individual channels while entertaining our viewers with fun and engaging content. We focus solely on the endless fun and possibilities that minecraft has to offer in a multiplayer environment that is soon starting its very first season! Whether it’s building our own bases, collaborative projects, or fun shenanigans, we aspire to take our followers on a journey of positive and family-friendly fun.

How are we doing this?: Together! While there must be an admin, beyond that, it is our goal that we can build this community together through having open and transparent discussions in our meetings and member discord. For that reason we are looking for the right team-oriented people to be a part of our community.

Requirements to join:

– We prefer 18+ but recognize that age can also just be a number. We expect maturity and honesty. – Must have an active YouTube and/or streaming account – Must be able to participate in community meetings and be willing to collaborate in game via simple voice chat – Must be able to produce family-friendly content on a weekly / bi-weekly basis.

A note for you who may feel unsure: We are not professionals, nor do we expect you to be. We are hobbyists and entertainers with goals and ambitions to improve ourselves as content creators. We learn along the way and through this, it gives a unique opportunity for viewers to venture on a journey with our members as we grow and improve. This is a fairly grass roots and authentic community to be a part of as "the other guys" in the room for minecraft content.

Server info: Our server will be reviewed before the start of the season by our community to ensure we are in agreement going forward but the following datapacks and mods would be proposed:

Datapacks

– AFK Display : Name goes grey if the player doesn’t move for five minutes. – Anti Endermen Grief : Stops endermen picking up blocks. – Armor Statues : Customize armorstand positions. – Customizable Armor Stands : Used to manipulate armor stands for building details. – Custom Roleplay Data : Enables the use of custom textures on items. – Double Shulker Shells : Shulkers always drop two shells. – Multiplayer Sleep : Improves the sleep system. – More Mob Heads : All mobs can drop their head on death – No Trial Chambers : Enables 1.21 blocks without structures generating. – Player Head Drops : If a player kills another, their head will drop on death! – Silence Mobs : A feature to stop entities making sounds. – Spectator Conduit Power / Night Vision : Visual tools for camera accounts. – Unlock Recipes : Unlock all crafting recipes. – Wandering Trades : Adds lots of mini block trades to Wandering Traders.

Mods

– Audio Player : Lets hermits add custom audio files into the world. – Cloth Config : Required for other mods. – fabric-carpet : Required for other mods. – lithium : Performance optimizer. – spark : Used to monitor & diagnose performance. – status : Allows players to set a streaming or recording status. – viewdistancefix : Uncouples server and client view distance. – voicechat : Enables proximity voice communication in game.

Communications: We use discord for our community communications, organizing meetings and arranging collaborative projects and events. Anything related to the building and maintaining our community. All other communications are done with simple voice chat in game.

HOW TO APPLY!: To apply, please fill out the form (link below): **The Artisan Collective SMP application form** Note: If there are any questions or we are interested in your application, you will be asked to meet us on discord for a discussion to determine any next steps. Please be prepared for this.

---

Questions & Answers

When will the season start?: Depending on recruitment, we are aiming for the latest March 16th, 2024. It’s our hope to meet collectively to discuss the plans for the season and get to know each other a bit more before starting. This way, it’s not totally a collective group of (total) strangers 😀

What version of Minecraft will be used to start with? 1.20.4

Are client side mods and plugins allowed? : There is a suggested list of client-side quality of life mods that will be made available on discord. Any mods that make it possible to cheat or give advantage to the player will not be allowed.

Will Dynmap or Bluemap be used?: No. We want to enhance the experience of exploration by not having the world available outside of game to see. Client-side mods like Xaeros mini-map and world map can give more relevant views based on what was explored, rather than have everything open for viewing.

Story driven content was mentioned. Is this required?: No. The idea of story or narrative drive content was only mentioned for those that want to follow along a loose path. The idea was only proposed as a potential timeline to follow but can be veered off into different pathways along the way if so desired….or then not at all. Often times, it can be a challenge to come up with ideas to make multiplayer Minecraft fun and some sort of ideas ‘can help’ in coming up with ideas for videos. However, good, wholesome content can come just from hanging out and doing things together with no specific topic as well. The idea of potentially having some kind of narrative is only intended to help guide, if needed.

What about in game economy? These can wreck servers.: Yes, they can, but they don’t have to…if they’re discussed about and planned ahead of time. Discussions and agreements made on discord make it much easier to avoid the craziness that can come from wild west shop competition. This is one topic of several to discuss and decide together.

What about world security?: We will be having backups throughout each day of the world to mitigate any potential damage. We hope to trust our community fully in ensuring mutual respect and honesty in how we play. As this is an SMP for making videos and streams by content creators, we want to ensure we have the best possible environment of honest people so that we can maximize the output on farms, without negatively affecting mob spawn rates coming from security plug-ins and mods.

Will the world seed be known to the community beforehand?: No. This is season 1 and we are concentrating this season on establishing ourselves as a group and building a core group of friends and content creators. We won’t rule this out for future seasons but for the integrity of season 1, our focus will be on foundations and enjoying the beauty of the wonder of exploration in Minecraft.

Will there be a limited world border?: We would like to propose one while we await 1.21 to be released in full so it allows us expansion with the new release beyond the borders. However, this is a topic to discuss amongst the members to determine what size of border we all can agree on.

How long will the season be? This needs to be discussed and agreed upon prior to starting but this also becomes clear as the season goes on. Ideally, we would propose approximately one year for a minimum duration of a season. However, we will be addressing this in our internal meetings to gauge where people are at with that idea, before and especially during the season, depending how it progresses.

Why are you doing a seasonal approach and resetting rather than keeping the map going? : We believe that as content creators, there is always something special about starting something new. Fresh seasons offer opportunities to implement new ideas with a new map and possibly new features in the game at that time. Seasons allow us to think in terms of projects where there is a definitive start and ending. This motivates us to continue our builds’ completion to be ready in time for the next season. That gives us time to make the map available for download for our viewers, while addressing potential new recruitment of players. Seasons just work for this type of approach and while we respect those that continue with the same map, we won’t be.

What if I can’t keep up regularly with the weekly or bi-weekly schedule? : Since this is not (yet) a job for us, it’s understandable that real life can cause delays for videos and streams. This needs flexibility. However, as this is an SMP focused on creating content for videos and streams, having the schedule stretch too far and too often with too many people will simply turn this into a regular Minecraft SMP, which is not the goal of this community. We create videos and streams and our aim is to be as regular as we can with providing them.

Can I join even though I don’t make videos or stream? I mean, I even know a few people on there. Can I join?: This is extremely unlikely as the point of this server community is to make fun, engaging, and entertaining content for people to enjoy. There may be, however, in the future opportunities for random events where some outsiders can join in and play. Perhaps with other content creators as well. These are not yet planned and there’s no timeline for this yet, but the idea could be fun.

If you should have any questions or need for clarification, just send us a PM.