Interview with Clément - The very first information on PCM 07/08!
Finally! We have all waited for this in a very long time, and here it is - the very first information about the upcoming edition of our favorite game, Pro Cycling Manager 3 (or 07/08). The information available is still limited, but with this interview we do finally get a feeling of what we can expect from the next version.
- First of all, what will the big changes be for this year's game? First of all we have created a totally new interface. We are working to make it more attractive and more comfortable. More information, new navigation system and right click use are the most important improvement. We focus on the manager part in order to improve what we thing to be important. In each race you will have to assign status for your rider and if you decide to simulate the race you will have to specify tactics and order for your riders (give team mate for your leader or ask for trying to escape are some example). The transfer system will be totally new too. You will have to negotiate with team and riders. Price, salary, importance in team will be the important part to discuss.And be careful! We link the two features. If you sign a rider promising him a leader place and use it as a team mate on most of the race he will be very unhappy and refuse any future discussion. The fact that only one leader can be named per races interdict you to recruit too many big riders without created conflict ;) Our goal is to make AI more aggressive and more able to build solid team.
For the 3D race part, we create the new “observe” action. It will allow you to collect info on a rider but will slow the reactions of your rider who is performing the observation.Fitness will be changeable from a day to other and will represent “sensation of the day”. But you will not allow knowing immediately the sensation for yours riders and must wait for them to tell you if they are in a good day or not.
- There's a rumour saying that the database system will change. However, I haven't read an official statement on this. Can you enlighten us? If you talk about the design and the cyclists’attributes system it’s a wrong rumour. No changes in format. It will remain .cdb
- Will you focus more on the management in this year's version? We focus on all the part of the game but yes, management part will be improved this year (we hope!J).
- And what about the AI? Have you improved it - and in that case, can you give any concrete example on how the AI works now? We always try to improve AI so we continue this year. As it’s one of our actual tasks we can’t give you more news at the moment.
- Are you going to use any of the suggestions from the members of Cyanide's English part of the forum? Of course, we always have a look on all the suggestions. For instance, Cyanide's English part of the forum often asked for Strategic Simulations and for a totally new interface, those features will be in PCM 2007.
- With the on-going fight between UCI and ASO it can be difficult to decide which point scale to use. But have you decided on anything yet? For example, will Paris - Nice be a Pro Tour-race? And will Unibet participate? Paris-Nice will be a Pro Tour race and Unibet will participate. We made the things how they should be in real life. It’s more logical and easier for everybody.
- A lot of people are interested in beta testing. Have you already started beta testing? Not yet. The beta-test period should start at the end of April or at the beginning of May.
- If not, will you have a public "election" of beta testers, or will you keep the same from last year? We’ll probably include some new beta-testers J (most probably a topic on our forums to ask for new testers).
- Also, we heard that you've hired a guy only for beta testing. Will that also be the case this year? That’s true; last year we hired Jérémie (known as Proutleroux on the forums) which was a full-time beta tester in Cyanide during 5 monthes. Now he’s the game-designer for PCM2007. We hired Binou (a famous stage-creator of the community) for stage creations and beta-tests and at the end of the projet I’ll help myself for beta-tests. So we’ll be 3 to test (in Cyanide…+ all the beta-testers) and balance the game on the last part of the project. That’s more than previous years but we really want to improve the overall quality of the game each year.
- Will the game still be as open-source alike as we've seen in all the past versions? Yes. That’s good for players, so good for us. No way to change this philosophy.It will be easier to make DB packs because the cyclist’s pictures and the jerseys tga won’t be anymore in STA_TGA but directly in the cyclists and in the team tables.
- When can we expect to see the first screenshots and trailers? When will the demo be released, and what are the current expected release date? I have really no infos about that, sorry.
- With this year's doping scandales it seems to become even more obvious that doping still is a very central part of the sport. Have you ever thought of implenting doping to PCM? Never thought seriously.
- Have you used time on thinking of ways to remove the tricks which are used a lot in multiplayer? Yes that’s in the planning and it’s very important to stop that kind of tricks which denature a lot the overall gameplay.
- And lastly, will you continue on using Gamecenter? Yes.
-------- Thanks a lot to Jérémie Monedero, the game designer of PCM, and Clément Pinget, another Cyanide employee.
The game will be released on the 20th of June in France (and probably also some other countries), and on the 28th in Denmark. I don't know any other release dates.
