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Articles Home » PCM 09: General Articles » Interview with Cyanide: A look on PCM10
Interview with Cyanide: A look on PCM10

It's almost becoming a tradition for PCM.daily to arrange these interview sessions with Cyanide about the upcoming edition of our beloved game, Pro Cycling Manager. This year is no exception, and although not everything is revealed in this interview, it does give you an idea of what to expect from the game, Pro Cycling Manager 2010.

This year, a lot of the buzz has been focused around the new graphic engine which Cyanide's CEO, Patrick Pliggersdorffer, revealed in an interview with PCM.daily in the beginning of 2009, so that was a natural thing for us to ask Xavier Wiart, aka Eyolfur, about. He first explained why a new graphic engine was needed: "The reason is that we didn't changed the landscape since PCM 2005, whereas the rider had a big evolution in PCM 2008. (...) The 3d engine might be one of the most important change in the PCM history," he says.

This also confirms what several assumed: That the rider model is the same as PCM08 and PCM09. For shirt and DB makers, this is good news as that also means that shirts from the two previous games are also compatible with PCM10.

After having seen the first trailer, several expressed concern about the computer requirements. While these are not fully known yet, Xavier several times state that PCM10 won't require much more than PCM09 - and that especially better configurations will benefit more from the changes: "The minimal configuration to play the game is not known yet, but it won't require a war machine to run it. This year, big configurations will take the maximum advantage of the new 3d engine, but a large panel of players will be able to play the game anyway. The minimum should be close from the PCM9 minimum requirement."

When Cyanide releases a new edition of PCM, it usually improves either the gameplay or the graphics a lot - and only rarely both. That's how it's been until now, and according to Xavier, the main improvement of this year's edition is the graphics. But with that said, there have, of course, also been improvements to other parts of the game. On the AI/gameplay, Xavier mentions this: "I won't communicate the whole list of the new features now, but I can already tell that a good improvement has been done in AI/Physio in race mode. Basically, the race's [possible] scenarii will be much more various. Leaders will take more risks, early breakaways will have more chances to run for victory and sprints will be harder to anticipate. The wind will have more effect on the cyclist and the weather will change during the race."

So while the road race gameplay will be improved, there'll be no changes to the track mode. Xavier also denies that we'll see any "Be a Pro"-mode, and this isn't the year for cyclocross either. And lastly, it's unlikely that there'll be any versions of PCM10 available for PSP, Xbox and/or PS3. Instead, we asked him about some of the new features that have been mentioned in the press announcements.

First of all, there's a new season mode, a 'light career', as Xavier put it. You'll be able to create your own kind of season which includes the races that you want it. If you only want to play the three Grand Tours, you just pick them, and the game sets up a season with it. This is available both online and offline. Xavier also says that it will come in handy for those interested in historical DBs: "This mode may be a big feature for database makers too, because you'll be able to create historic seasons quite easily. For example, every cycling fan dreams to do a UCI World Cup like in older times. It will just require a few changes in the DB (riders, teams etc..) and a quick season configuration...and let's run an historical Jalabert VS Bartoli world cup!"

At the end of last year, Clément Pinget, aka Freire, revealed in an interview with PCMBenelux that there'll be more focus on the historical part of cycling. Elaborating on Pinget's announcement, Xavier says that you'll be able to see race results, teams, rider palmares, etc. from previous years. You're also given the challenge to beat certain records, e.g. Armstrong's 7 Tour victories, De Vlaeminck's 4 Paris-Roubaix wins, etc.

Lastly, there's the new stage editor which many seem to be looking forward to. There have been some rumours that it'd be very difficult to deal with, even more difficult than the current stage editor, but Xavier denies that: "Except a certain time to learn how the tool works, it will be easier to use. Some tutorials with video samples are already done for the stage makers. The tool will be good enough to allow a good quality of detail. Making a stage won't take more time than before, but you'll be able to reach a better quality at the end," he says.
Unfortunately, it will not be released prior to the game.

Although that's it for new features, it should be mentioned that Xavier isn't allowed to reveal everything. Unlike previous years, Focus, the publisher, has decided that they would like to do more of the communication themselves - so watch out for upcoming announcements ;)

Also, don't forget to read the documentation - the article above is based on the questions and answers in this article.

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