Completely Annotated Rules - work in progress!

[Carcking]

Do we have the contacts for HiG and RGG? That would be important for completing and maintaining the CAR in its original intent - unless we allow it to become a document which simply supports our own interpretations. In any case it would be good to keep it current with the latest expansions.

[CKorfmann]

What made Matt the ideal candidate was his ability to communicate with them in fluent German.  If there is another person who is able to do so, I'd say they were the right person (at least to make contact).  We need to get ahold of someone at HiG and say "Look, we are your most important fan base.  We are committed to spreading your news and making your job easier.  Give us someone that will answer our questions in a timely manor and act as a liason for us and we will do nothing but help you."  Something like that.  Shoot straight.

Perhaps spreading responsibilities would make it an easier task and less likely to fall by the wayside again. 

[MrNumbers]

My wife speaks German fluently, she has a Master degree in German philology. So I can help with translation, but I don't have iPages (because I don't have Mac or any Apple product).

[obervet03]

The divide-and-conquer approach is certainly the optimal way to keep the CAR alive and strong. I'm getting the document back up to date (scans of Festival tiles, tweaks based on Big Box 3 rules that Matt had started doing, etc). However, the only German I know is "ober," and the only reason I know that one is that it's my last name, so I'm not going to be the best person to contact HiG. If anyone (MrNumbers?) can act as our contact person and get answers out of HiG, I can feed that to the CAR.

[Whaleyland]

Concerning contacting Hans im Glück, I believe Matt talked directly with the game's publisher, Bernd Brunnhofer. I do not have his email address but I have talked to his son, Moritz, via the standard "service@hans-im-glueck.de" email with fairly good results. Best of all, Moritz writes English quite well and seems to understand it equally well. While German would still be the preferred language, especially since the rules need to be translated from the original German, asking for rules clarifications could be done in English or German probably.

Some of our questions, specifically regarding rules, may have to be asked at Spielbox. Barbara Nostheide "barbara@nostheide.de" is the contact person there. The normal support lines at Spielbox do not generally reach her anymore, but they used to before the English Spielbox opened up.

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I think we should also consider including La Porxada into the CAR. It votes seem to be divided whether it is a "true" expansion or just a "fan" expansion, but it's formal endorsement by Hans im Glück mixed with its legal distribution at a Spanish game fair suggest to me that it is more legit than illegit. Many games have print-and-play expansions that are still legitimate. Just check out the three expansions for Starship Catan.

[Carcking]

Should we come up with a list of questions that are still open?

Then maybe whittle it down to a handful of key questions so as not to be overwhelming. That can be a phase I. We can see how it goes and move forward from there.

[Whaleyland]

I definitely approve of this idea, but I think we should pick no more than five questions, and probably ones that are either extremely important for clarification purposes (i.e., questions that answers are absolutely needed for to figure out a mechanic) and old unanswered questions from the Celebration expansion and earlier.

[Scott]

It looks like things are already headed in this direction, but I think it would be best to separate the duties of translation/contact and updating the document. This will reduce the amount of work required by each person, and in turn make it more likely that the CAR will be updated in a more timely fashion.

I think the list of open questions can be found by searching for the word "daffodil". Keeping the list of question short may help improve response time, and if we send questions more often eventually we'll get through all of them. Maybe a schedule of every two weeks for starters?

Although my initial reaction to including our own conclusions as footnotes is negative, as long as we make a VERY clear distinction between official and unofficial rulings the integrity of the CAR should stay mostly intact. However, there will need to be well-documented reasons behind any unofficial rulings else we may come under fire by members of the general Carcassonne public.

With regards to La Porxada, I think we can all reach a compromise by including it in the CAR but being really clear that it's only semi-official.

[Carcking]

I have to say I agree with all of this! 

[Whaleyland]

I just chatted with Matt again and he told me that he mostly used the service email at Hans im Glück to contact his people, and that Georg Wild was his primary contact there. I still think Moritz may be a good choice too. If there's anything else you need to know from Matt, post your question here. He's busy but I've got his ear for a bit longer if needed.

[obervet03]

Although my initial reaction to including our own conclusions as footnotes is negative, as long as we make a VERY clear distinction between official and unofficial rulings the integrity of the CAR should stay mostly intact. However, there will need to be well-documented reasons behind any unofficial rulings else we may come under fire by members of the general Carcassonne public.

Obviously everyone on this forum is going to be of a different mindset as to how complete the CAR should be. Should it be limited only to official clarifications handed down by HiG? Should it include every single assumption that we as a community have made? I imagine that most people would be okay with something in the middle, as long as the specifics are noted, which is why I'm taking that tack as I go forward. I think it's important to note, though, that this does not represent a change in the way that the CAR has been compiled. If you go back and look at the footnotes for Matt's last version (i.e. the currently available version), there are a number of footnotes that start with "It would seem logical..." or "This would seem to exclude..." which are obviously not HiG-produced interpretations. Certainly there are a lot of official clarifications (the Q and A formatted footnotes), but the distinction has been less clear previously than I am trying to make it now.

[obervet03]

With regards to La Porxada, I think we can all reach a compromise by including it in the CAR but being really clear that it's only semi-official.

This would also be be my opinion.

[Slayden]

I'm alright with the pardoxa being included.  I'd be more interested in some good progress being made and something released since the current annotated are a little dated.  Heck if we could have two versions of the rules with and without the paradoxa or whatever other official or unofficial rules are out their.    I like having anything and everything included.
I simply remove which ever chapters i don't want or like to print in the pdf when i print it. Modifing a pdf after the fact is not all that dificult, so i don't mind whatever content is present. 

[comware]

I would also agree that including everything (ie. La Porxada) would be preferable over excluding expansions simply because a percentage of players don't want it or play it.  It is always easier to exclude pages from the pdf in printing than it is to add rules ourselves that were never included at all.

Also, to me the purpose of the CAR is that you have one rulebook that encompasses all expansions no matter what combination you choose to play with.  Sure that will be those that don't play with La Porxada and others on the grounds that it is unofficial; however, there will also be others that do and, for them, the CAR would not be as effective or helpful if some expansions were deliberately left out.

[obervet03]

I'd be more interested in some good progress being made and something released since the current annotated are a little dated.

There is definitely progress being made. I'm in the midst of 2 weeks of travels, so I'm at a little bit of a pause, but once I get this reconfiguring finished, future updates will be a lot quicker and easier.