Carcassonne Central expansion: reboot!

[CKorfmann]

If you wanted to give me the contact info for the HiG guy you spoke with, I wouldn't mind emailing him.

[CKorfmann]

For full disclosure... I wanted to let you guys know that I emailed some people at Speilbox today about the prospect of a Carcassonne Central expansion.  Since it's been on the table for the better part of two years now, I thought I'd kick the tires on it one more time and see what happens.  Here is the email I sent.

Greetings,
      My name is Chris Korfmann and writing to you as a representative of Carcassonne Central, the foremost web-based community for fans of Carcassonne in the world.  Our site is dedicated to all things Carcassonne and we greatly appreciate the contributions you've made to the game.    
 
      At Carcassonne Central, we provide many valuable resources for players including verification and updates on Carcassonne releases, clarification of rules questions (through good relations built with HiG and RGG), and a discussion forum which allows people to discuss all topics related to Carcassonne.  We provide new players a place to ask their questions, learn about the game and it's expansions, and get advice on when, where, and how to acquire them.    
 
      We also have an extensive catalog of our own fan-made expansions created primarily by a group of author-members of our site.  These expansions are conceived, created, and play-tested through the forum with help and input from anyone interested in participating.  We have created a standard format for our expansions and seek to maintain the integrity and ingenuity of the game.    
 
      Perhaps our best offering is that of the Completely Annotated Rules (or CAR) for Carcassonne and it's expansions.  It is the single most comprehensive document for information, FAQs, answers, and game play resources in existence.  This is a living document constructed and managed by Matthew Harper, one of our founding members, with contributions by many site members and is current up to July of 2009 including all Carcassonne base game expansions up to Wheel of Fortune.  The size and scope of this document continues to grow exponentially with each expansion and we are working to bring it up-to-date again very soon.  
 
      I am writing to you today hoping that we may cordially begin a relationship with your fine publication as well.  For almost two years now, we have been discussing the possibility of publishing some of our best site created expansions.  We believe that as intimately familiar with the game of Carcassonne as we are, that some of our own expansions are of the highest quality and would be excellent additions to the game for the mutual enjoyment of everyone.  However, our status as a simple fan site does not provide the resources we need to make this dream a reality.  As mentioned, we appreciate the fine contributions you've made to the game of Carcassonne and would be very interested to hear your thoughts and opinions on the expansions offered at our site by our creative and dedicated authors.    
 
      We would like to propose a partnership with you.  With the 10 year anniversary of Carcassonne happening this year, we thought you may be interested in hearing our story and sharing it with your audience, many of whom are some of our 2500 members and the multitude of others who visit our site as guests.  We would love to realize the goals of every one of our authors and see something of our own creation produced through your publication.  To the best of my knowledge, the vast majority of our contributing authors have relinquished the rights to their expansions to Carcassonne Central with any prospects of publication.  We also realize that this is not something to be taken lightly or done quickly, but we are very interested in beginning the dialog with you and doing our part to see this take place.  Hopefully, we've taken most of the hard work out of it for you with our created expansions and are confident that you will find several that meet your high expectations.  Please visit our site through the following links and share your experience with us.
 
Carcassonne Central: The website
The Discussion Forum
The Completely Annotated Rules
Our Fan-made Expansions
 
      I am excitedly looking forward to your reply and if you have any questions feel free to contact myself or any of our site staff or authors.  Any one of us should be able to answer any questions you have.  We hope you are willing and interested to partner with us for the benefit of all.  Our thanks to you in advance.  Happy gaming!

MOD: Topic merged at this point from authors forum.

[meepleater]

Hopefully this will be more succesful than the attempts with Jay...

[Joff]

It's worth a shot. Let's see what the response is.

Even if we did not get to have an expansion published in this way, having an article about the site (and maybe the Authors) would be really good to see.

[Tobias]

I hope there will be no more expansions to Carcassonne. Ever.

Good luck to this though; I know I am the minority

[CKorfmann]

It's been several days and I haven't heard anything from Spielbox yet.  Not sure if I will...

I figured it can't hurt to have more oars in the water, so I sent something to Jay too.

...I'm wondering if there is anything you can tell me concerning progress on our expansion ideas?  Is there something more I can do?  Has Bernd made any other remarks to you about our submissions?  If there is no other information you can give me, could you pass along the contact information for Bernd?  We are very serious about seeing this through and are definitely invested in the success of Carcassonne.  I hope you find helping us will help you too.  Thanks so much for the assistance you've already provided.

He actually responded rather quickly. 

I will speak with Bernd next week. I suspect he has little interest as he has many ideas of his
own. I will ask if I could do something on my own, but I imagine he may want to restrict me from doing that.
Please check back in about 10 days when I return from Nürnberg. Thanks

I can't decide how promising this is.  At least Jay seems willing to help us. 

[Joff]

He actually responded rather quickly. 

I will speak with Bernd next week. I suspect he has little interest as he has many ideas of his
own. I will ask if I could do something on my own, but I imagine he may want to restrict me from doing that.
Please check back in about 10 days when I return from Nürnberg. Thanks

I can't decide how promising this is.  At least Jay seems willing to help us. 

Or, it could be a fob off

[CKorfmann]

Got an answer from Jay.  I think it's rather exciting.  I have some ideas, but before I answer him, I need to address it with you all. 

Hello Chris,

They still have plenty of ideas and are not looking outside. Sorry.

He suggested I could do something on my own - I will consider it, but
I am quite busy. Can you send what you suggest? Thanks

Jay Tummelson
Rio Grande Games

His statement about they is in regards to Bernd/HiG.  I think this is a perfect opportunity to do something GQ11ish.

My idea is this, since Creativity is his thing, I thought we/he might be able to sell sets of two stickers to put on the extra tiles.  It might be possible to include meeples, I could ask him about that, but before he gets flooded with ideas, I think we need to narrow it down a bit.  I don't think we'll get anywhere if we say, "here's the link to our site, check them out."  So, do we just send him the same stuff we discussed before?  Should this discussion move to the open threads?  What are yor thoughts?

[mjharper]

I'm not convinced about stickers, because they'd never fit perfectly. Also, 'official' alternative tiles would be a pain to account for in the CAR. But since I was barely involved in the original discussion, my opinion doesn't count for much here.

What I've wanted from an expansion for a long time is an 'expansion expansion' including elements from previous expansions - a new pig-herd tile, a new tower foundation, a new tunnel entrance, that sort of thing. That, and an official solution to the trade tokens scoring issue.

[CKorfmann]

I'm not quite sure what you're referring to by trade token scoring issue, but as for something being official, if Jay were to publish it, it should be no less official than the GQ11 I would think.  I see what you mean about random sticker expansions be difficult for the CAR though.

Perhaps I should write back to Jay to ask for some parameters to consider.

[mjharper]

I'm not quite sure what you're referring to by trade token scoring issue,

Sorry, an old annoyance of mine. I'm referring to the fact that a majority of trade tokens at the end of the game score a whopping total of 10 points. Fine if you're playing with the basic game + Traders and Builders. By the time you get to a game of Mega-Carc, 10 points is a joke.

Just think: how many points did you pick up from cloisters in the last game? How many points from the King? These basically scale as more expansions are added. Trade goods don't: they're fixed at 10, and become less and less important (=tactical) as we go on. What I'd love is a official rule / variation which fixes this, makes trade goods scale, and makes them useful again.

[CKorfmann]

I think it might be difficult to scale commodity scoring.  You could add an expansion expansion, as you've recommended, and include more trade good tiles, but that wouldn't address scoring.  You could also increase scoring for extra chits beyond the majority, but that would effect a small game too (I recently got all but two chits in a game on AsoBrain).  Perhaps some combination of the two would be in order.  

I think I am going to as Jay what his parameters would be.

[mjharper]

Not wishing to hijack the thread with my peeves, but it occurred to me this morning that you could multiply the number of points awarded for a majority of trade goods by the number of major expansions used or something like that. If you used three major expansions you'd get 30 points; if you used all eight, 80. That would certainly make trade goods worth fighting for in a game of Mega-Carc.

Asking Jay what the parameters would be is good. Just say for the moment we wanted an 'expansion expansion' (and as I said, my opinion doesn't count for much this late in the discussion—and I'm fine with that). For it to have any sense of legitimacy, there would have to be at least one representation of and expansion for us to 'adapt' it. One princess tile in order to modify the rules for princesses (for example, that seduced followers now behave like captured followers and are not returned to the player until the city is completed). To do something similar with trade goods, you'd need at least one of each type of good, and the same number of each token. If we can't have odd-shaped tokens, it becomes much harder. If we can though, we could also think about including a tile with a tunnel; or tokens to put on bridges to turn them into aqueducts, that sort of thing.

[loganmann1]

I think its very exciting to hear that Jay is willing to consider something.  Previously the proposed submission to HiG was enough to be a large expansion.  I think if Jay is going to do something of his own he’ll probably stick to a small expansion like GQ11 or Cult, Siege, and Creativity (possibly with the addition of a new meeple, so a Count sized box).  The original submission was all fan made expansions from the site…that seemed to be the consensus of what the members of the site wanted to see.  Discussion on this thread has leaned toward an expansion of expansion crossover tiles.  

For the first, an expansion of fan made expansions, I think this best represents the creative expression and input into the game from CC authors.  I think it makes a strong statement about what CC is and adds to the community.  With this option I think Jay will consider the quality of the rules and its impact on the game in adding new mechanics.  Is it worth it to the game.

For the second idea, expansion crossovers, I think this is less impactful as a statement about CC but perhaps more intriguing to serious fans of the games.  At least those who collect all the expansions and play Mega-Carc.  With this option I think Jay will consider his sales.  If a high percentage of those who buy the game go on to collect them all then it’s a good consideration, but producing a tile set that requires other expansion sets might not be as successful as it’s the last thing anyone will buy, once they have all the other sets.  So I think he’ll base that decision on his sales figures.  Is it worth it to distribute.

That said I think Jay will lean more towards the brand new mechanics then he would a tile set that restricts itself to the purchase of other sets.  That is just business sense.  So I lean towards the 12 tile set showcasing fan mades.  Though if a few of the tiles were to be crossover or if a few of the fan made tiles incorporated crossover symbols on them I think that could be a nice perk.  Though I’d keep the crossovers to what is in the Big Box expansions and not use symbols from the small box, spielbox, or special edition (ie crop circles and the party) inclusions.  Well…with the exception of another possible pig herd.

[Bixby]

I'm not quite sure what you're referring to by trade token scoring issue,

Sorry, an old annoyance of mine. I'm referring to the fact that a majority of trade tokens at the end of the game score a whopping total of 10 points. Fine if you're playing with the basic game + Traders and Builders. By the time you get to a game of Mega-Carc, 10 points is a joke.

Just think: how many points did you pick up from cloisters in the last game? How many points from the King? These basically scale as more expansions are added. Trade goods don't: they're fixed at 10, and become less and less important (=tactical) as we go on. What I'd love is a official rule / variation which fixes this, makes trade goods scale, and makes them useful again.

Check out this thread