Carcassonne Central
Carc Central Community => News and Events => Topic started by: Meepledrone on July 20, 2021, 12:06:30 AM
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Hi all!
After more than a month, we are happy to announce that Carcassonne Central is back!
All the technical issues seem to be solved...
A lot has happened since:
* The 20th Anniversary Edition has been released by several publishers: HiG, MindOK, Devir,... but we are still waiting for some others such as ZMG.
(https://cundco.de/media/image/4a/45/5a/CC-Jubi-14C0Yr774k5IIT.jpg)(https://cundco.de/media/image/7b/d3/51/CC-Jubi-2OjmYaaJu9SNFf.jpg)
* HiG stopped shipping copies of the 20th Anniversary Edition due to production issues: Some of the beautiful blue boxes were showing some ripples. They returned them back to the producer and announced they will be replacing damaged boxed.
* HiG announced a Paleo v3.0 with updated graphics to be released soon:
https://www.hans-im-glueck.de/en/news/Paleo-V3en.html (https://www.hans-im-glueck.de/en/news/Paleo-V3en.html)
* Paleo is getting its first major expansion to be released in October (Spiel 2021 in Essen).
https://www.hans-im-glueck.de/en/news/Paleo-ErweiterungEN.html (https://www.hans-im-glueck.de/en/news/Paleo-ErweiterungEN.html)
* Paleo won the Kennerspiel des Jahres 2021! It was announced just yesterday. So big congrants to HiG on this front too.
https://www.hans-im-glueck.de/news/PaleoKennerspiel21.html (https://www.hans-im-glueck.de/news/PaleoKennerspiel21.html) (German only for the time being)
So what else can we say, being so happy to have all around again! So welcome back and let's celebrate!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3GwjfUFyY6M
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We are back!
Thank you Meepledrone, Gantry, Dan and all who have worked hard behind the scenes to get the forum back online :D
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Good job guys! +zillions merit
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Good job! Thanks you!
Envoyé de mon iPhone en utilisant Tapatalk
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Yeah, great job! :yellow-meeple:
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Wahoo! It's been weird having it down for so long. It was giving me flashbacks to many years ago when the first major crash caused us to move to a new version entirely. I'm glad that has been avoided.
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He he he!
We were fearing the worst... But in the end, a bit of digital laparascopy saved the day.
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Hooray! Welcome back Carcassonne Central! :) :(y)
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Yeaah!!! Celebration time!!
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
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Hurrah
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It's good to be back! I've missed you all.
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What already !? :o
And exactly day after I promised something! I thought it would be no sooner than august. Gotta speed up the process then >:D
Major thanks to everybody involved in getting CarcassonneCentral back online! :(y)
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Good work to the team that got this back up and running!!! :yellow-meeple:
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Excellent work to the team for getting everything back up and running!
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:) :(y) Sweet.
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YAY!!!
Thanks to Gantry, who I understand did most of the heavy lifting, to Meepledrone and Decar. Good to be back :red-meeple:
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It is good to be back!! :(y)
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A big thanks for getting it online again :D I am quite new, but was missing it already ;)
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Ha ha ha!
Now you can take a deep breath and dive in! ;)
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bravo
I was starting to get depressed
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Welcome back!
Now you can get your daily Carcassonne shot! :o
By the way, these meeples are requesting new exciting tiles to be placed on...
:black1-meeple: :blue-meeple: :green-meeple: :red-meeple: :gray-meeple: :violet-meeple: :pink-meeple: :orange-meeple: :white-meeple: :brown-meeple: :neutral-meeple: :yellow-meeple:
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Paleo getting a new print just for "diversity" complaints.
*sigh*, not even board games are safe from this progressist shenanigans. Can't wait to play with my black, transgender caveman.
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Paleo getting a new print just for "diversity" complaints.
*sigh*, not even board games are safe from this progressist shenanigans. Can't wait to play with my black, transgender caveman.
not all cavemen were white lol it's a fair complaint. plus new editions are perfect opportunities to change art, anyway. just play the old editions if you don't like it.
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Paleo getting a new print just for "diversity" complaints.
*sigh*, not even board games are safe from this progressist shenanigans. Can't wait to play with my black, transgender caveman.
not all cavemen were white lol it's a fair complaint. plus new editions are perfect opportunities to change art, anyway. just play the old editions if you don't like it.
+1 to this.
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They're *cavemen*. The game is about a single prehistoric tribe trying to survive during the ice age and it has mammoths and wolves, which means it's a tribe of NORTHERN cavemen in Eurasia or America.
The tribe could be either Asian, Caucasian or American Native looking cavemen. Even Neanderthals would work, but they should all look similar or have the same race because that's how tribes were in the past.
Complaining about a lack of diversity on CAVEMEN in a board game, and making them mix races like if today's diversity was present on a prehistoric tribe is just ridiculous. This generation is just ridiculous.
Yes I'm sticking to my old version, but that's not gonna stop me from saying how utterly ridiculous this is. What's next, another print of Carcassonne with a black princess and a latino knight on the box? Because diversity am I right? Who cares if middle ages France didn't have mariachi knights, a game not including all races is offensive! Lol.
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They're *cavemen*. The game is about a single prehistoric tribe trying to survive during the ice age and it has mammoths and wolves, which means it's a tribe of NORTHERN cavemen in Eurasia or America.
While it might be a single tribe surviving the Ice Age, the "northern"ness can be up for debate. Consider that Mammoths have existed in Africa, Europe, Asia, and North America1. Wolves, too, have had a long history of existing within the "Holarctic realm"2 which includes North America, Northern Africa, almost all of Europe and Russia, as well as significant portions of northern Asia3. That's "north" if we're broadly talking about almost everything north of the equator.
The tribe could be either Asian, Caucasian or American Native looking cavemen. Even Neanderthals would work, but they should all look similar or have the same race because that's how tribes were in the past.
I find it hard to believe that different tribes did not intermingle or interact with one another. We're naturally social animals. Offspring were not the only way that tribes of people were able to grow. And how else would a tribe maintain sufficient genetic diversity?
Complaining about a lack of diversity on CAVEMEN in a board game, and making them mix races like if today's diversity was present on a prehistoric tribe is just ridiculous. This generation is just ridiculous.
I'd argue making most of the cavemen white is pushing more in-line with modern conceptions of what cavemen looked like than anything else. Many humans living until the end of the Paleolithic likely had some degree of dark skin if we consider that most of our earliest ancestors originated from Africa and had dark skin. If you'd like to read some interesting pieces about the development of human skin color variations, why not start with a piece about a man who lived in Briton 10,000 years ago: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/ancient-briton-had-dark-skin-and-light-eyes-dna-analysis-shows-180968097/ (https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/ancient-briton-had-dark-skin-and-light-eyes-dna-analysis-shows-180968097/)
Here's a great quote from that piece:
"As Hannah Devlin of the Guardian explains, Cheddar Man’s appearance has been the subject of considerable interest because he belonged to the first wave of migrants to establish a continuous human presence in Britain after around 11,700 years ago; before that, humans had temporarily settled in the region and cleared out during various ice ages. Around ten percent of people with white British ancestry are descended from this group of first settlers, and previous reconstructions of Cheddar Man have depicted him with pale skin and light hair."
(Obviously Briton and France are not the same place, but they're close enough that I think it's fair to draw a comparison here).
Yes I'm sticking to my old version, but that's not gonna stop me from saying how utterly ridiculous this is. What's next, another print of Carcassonne with a black princess and a latino knight on the box? Because diversity am I right? Who cares if middle ages France didn't have mariachi knights, a game not including all races is offensive! Lol.
Let's be honest with ourselves here. We're on a forum based around a board game focused on Medieval-ish France, but that also includes fantastical elements like dragons, gingerbread men, magic portals, and more. 100% historical accuracy isn't something that any (or most) games need to really adhere to, and Carcassonne and Paleo certainly are not. They're going for a "feeling" of "accuracy" or "authenticity" that comes through in both art and gameplay. Often that is by adhering to preconceived notions of a time and place, rather than nailing 100% accuracy. And that preconceived notion is what is being challenged by these critiques that you so adamantly dislike.
And to address your comparison, anyway: I think there's more than enough room for a black princess or Latino knight.
1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mammoth (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mammoth)
2 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolution_of_the_wolf (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolution_of_the_wolf)
3 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holarctic_realm (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holarctic_realm)
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Drodo, you're opinions on this matter are utterly unwelcome.
And attempting to hyperbolize Diversity by referencing what you consider fringe cases is even less so.
Perhaps rather than simply considering your own feelings, you could consider how a member of this community who is black, or transgender, or even exploring their gender, or a woman, would feel after reading your bigotry.
This community supports board gamers. And does not condone the use of derogatory, marginalizing, or hateful language, including statements including age, race, gender, sexual orientation, religion, disability.
Hopefully you can find a rock to crawl behind from an ever decreasing pool.
Carcassonne Central is not one of these rocks.
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Yeah I'm gay and mexican/latino myself, not sure where you get all that stuff about me using derogatory, marginalizing, hateful words etc. from. Calling things by what they are is not something people should be offended for.
And while I support diversity in society, I think it has crossed the line being forced everywhere and on everything nowadays.
I like a medieval game that has fitting characters, and I like a prehistoric game with neanderthals or a tribe. Forcing diversity doesn't make me feel included. Making Ice Man from the X-Men suddenly become a gay character does not make me feel included, it just makes me cringe at good old games, movies and characters being changed everywhere all the time. It's ridiculous.
I agree this subject isn't something that should be discussed in CarcF though, so feel free to delete these posts and even mute me or something if you want.
Hopefully you can find a rock to crawl behind from an ever decreasing pool.
And I'm the one being called hateful. LoL.
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They're *cavemen*. The game is about a single prehistoric tribe trying to survive during the ice age and it has mammoths and wolves, which means it's a tribe of NORTHERN cavemen in Eurasia or America.
They are cavemen. So the earlier part of the paleolithic (2.5 million to 10,000 BCE) era.
They could indeed be any of the Homo Sapien 'races' you describe or indeed of African or Middle Eastern appearance (as someone else points out) or Neanderthal because the Paleolithic period covers everything from pre Sapien species to the geographical and 'racial' diversity of Sapiens in the more recent part of that era. I agree that, on balance, it is likely that the members of any one given tribe would likely be more homogenous than most modern societies.
However, I suggest we throw all the above aside because this is a game and not a simulation. Despite the apparent cogence of the argument that the tribe in the game should be homogenous because "mammoths, wolves, cavemen, tribes etc" even the briefest look at the rulebook reveals the presence of a dodo in the game. Dodos were endemic to Madagascar. No ifs or buts. So the game is set on Madagascar. With mammoths. And wolves.
I think it's clear that the internal logic of the game isn't a good foundation for any argument on how the 'race' of the cavemen should be portrayed.
But that (all the obvious contradictions and inconsistencies) is fine. Because it is a game. And sure, if we wanted to, we could have had Neanderthals or only white cavemen. Or only black ones. If we wanted to.
But we don't want to. We want to play games in which we are represented. (Not just white us, all of us.) We are diverse.
Games that don't have specific geographic or cultural reasons for representing a single 'racial' type have no good reason to do so. Because they are games. And because they are for all of us. I think it is clear that a game set somewhere in a period of around 2 million years on any of three continents really isn't specific by any measure. So - unless there is an underlying prejudice - we should not default to a homogenous white tribe/people/citizenry but instead to a diverse 'multi-racial' cast that reflects us.
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PS
The only reason I've put quotes around 'race' is because it is a term without useful scientific meaning - I think "appearance" would perhaps be a better word but that is a whole other conversation - but I've used it because it is a widely understood expression.
Also, whilst I'm quoting Drodo to present a (strongly) opposing view on the subject of diversity representation in games, I have no motivation to insult them personally.
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Just to round this topic out:
1) HiG aren't making anyone buy the new edition.
2) If changing the art, encourages people, or a broader range of people, to play the game, then great.
3) The designer did state that their original plan was to have a range of people represented, but this was accidentally lost during the design process.
4) I agree that our games should, and do, represent us.
Drodo won't be able to reply for a few days after their last post.
But I won't be deleting posts, I'm happy for the world to see people's opinions.