 The most recent interview we've published was a great success, and it seems like everyone liked to have more insight into what it means to be an important part of the PCM community. Following that, we've decided to contact another vital member of Pro Cycling Manager's long history.
emmea90 is an award-winning stagemaker, community administrator, multiplayer organiser and web developer, so he's pretty much our very own jack of all trades and an obvious choice for the second episode of our community interviews.
He's recently released his yearly conversion of 7 years of old Cyanide stages, which you can find on the Steam Workshop for PCM 2017. By clicking read more, you'll find out about his work as a stagemaker, his future plans for the multiplayer side of PCM, and several other very interesting details.
When did you first get into cycling?
I remember watching a few Giro editions and supporting Simoni, then the first clear memory I have is when I was watching the battle between Armstrong and Ullrich in 2003 Tour de France because of my father watching it. Then following Giro and Tour regularly the following years – I think I’m a Cunego hater after Giro 2004. Then I go supporting Basso, Contador and Sagan nowadays.
How did you discover PCM and what has been your first edition?
I discovered PCM in 2006 coming back from a holiday. It was a period in which I was addicted to sports gaming, especially FIFA, PES and NBA Live and I just saw it on a shop and wanted to try it.
When did you decide you wanted to work on stagemaking?
When the system changed, in PCM 2010. I had a lot of free time and I wanted to try to draw some “hard routes” for playing online. I wanted to draw my stages before but the old system was really a mess. I remember Ciro made a tutorial in the summer before I started using the new editor for drawing fantasy routes.
What is the best race variant you have ever made, in your opinion?
I really think it’s the Giro fantasy variant from Palermo to Brescia. We thought it as a final for multiplayer Italian National Championships, so there is a really hard route but that presents a climax evolution of the stages from slowest to hardest and a difficult of the stages that is mixed for all the riders. There are also some cobbles!
What are your thoughts on the recent evolutions of PCM, with regard to stage editing?
I think the guys at Cyanide are doing a really good job to create the PCM 17 stages. The one created by Stylus for the new games have a high number of isolated objects making them so realistic compared to past years, but I’d prefer if the guys from Focus and Cyanide spent their time to game and gameplay.
How much time in total do you think you have spent stagemaking?
You have to consider that a proper stage requires 4-5 hours. I have done more than 100 stages from scratch so I think 400-500 hours. Unfortunately, I don’t have any time for working on new stages and I really want to have it.
Almost every year, you are forced to do a great favour to the community by mass-converting old stages, something that otherwise not many are willing to do, and this year hasn't been an exception. What keeps you motivated?
It’s not a strong effort as I am usually running the task in background while doing other stuff, then simply repack. There is a lot of effort in the game about the variants…. You can better enjoy the career with them…
The question should be: why is the game not released with variants? And I am not talking about custom variants but simply the conversions of the old ones. This is a thing that who produces the game can do, so why don’t they do it? The players can benefit with seven times the World Tour stages actually in the game and this it’s a pity because, if you think, converting them from an “external” member means that only a few players from the buyers can benefit on this work and that’s a pity.
What has been the most satisfying moment of your 'modding career'?
Seeing my variants being played and commented on other forum in the single players stories and being congratulated by the players for the quality of slopes (yes, Cyanide quality of old stages really lacks).
Do you have any advice for the newcomers of the PCM scene?
Find your community, keep in touch with the players and learn how to edit jerseys, stages. Create something that is “yours” and insert it into the game. And play online. This is a game with a strong fanbase of players.
Stagemaking is far from being the only thing you do for the community. You're one of the most important elements when it comes to the multiplayer side of PCM. What can you tell us about that?
I like organizing stuff and putting people together. It all started with PCM 09 on my community offering myself as cooperator when there were problems in organization. There are many problems on this side: first one is that there are no official tournaments organized by the producer, second one is that communication is worse since there is no gamecenter anymore. Think about the World Cup: the problem every organization has is to reach players with the news that there is a World Cup before it’s over!
What are your current projects for multiplayer?
First of all, as I said, bringing players together. We have created a Gamecenter Discord chat that is crowded with players simply for discussion and casual games, and has been joined by Cyanide and Focus crew members, too. We have currently this international Tour de France tournament that if you think about it, it’s something bigger, never seen before, something that Focus should/can do but we are currently doing instead, and players seem to like it.
About me, I am active of course in Italian community organization that is the biggest and the oldest, but we sent usually competitive players (in road) on the World cup. Next to that I am active in bringing communities together: we want to export the national championships in the other communities and bring values to the national champions. For Belgium and Netherlands there is PCM Focus but last year we got the first French Championships by PCM Village and the first Spain Championships by PCM Spain and the first Champions League for the European title between the national community champions.
The long-term target is to create a multy-community organization that can talk with Focus and Cyanide for tournaments and maybe create a “standard model” for the World Cup (example, ITT, TTT and Road Race tournaments for road). The long-term target is indeed to organize the World Cup with this multy-community organization instead of giving to one community each year, with different rules and different problems every year.
Do you have any other active projects?
Yes, as someone here knows I am currently running the "La Flamme Rouge" track editor, which you can find on la-flamme-rouge.eu. It all started because we need a tracking site after Tracks4bikers went down and I also needed to save time when creating TDF-like track profiles for our management game.
It all went big in the last year when we came up on the social media and we had the idea to make profiles for the official races, ending up creating profiles for Tour de Normandie, the Italian youth NCs and a big race like the Tour of the Alps! There are also some races that did went with the "self-service" route, drawing their profiles without talking to us, like Tour du Haut-Var, Ronde de l'Isard and Giro Rosa.
We have currently made a partnership with Focus and we launched our first tracking contest with PCM 2017 as a prize! My only concern about this is that we are currently growing faster than the time I can spend on site development. And as big social accounts often do, we also have our personal haters!
Wow, that’s a lot of stuff. Is there something you are not able to do in PCM?
Jerseys. I am really terrible at that. I swear.
You're administrator of PCM's oldest running community, the Italian-speaking cycling-manager.eu. Interestingly, you've come to know a few members that went on to become professional cyclists. Can you name a few of them and share a few moments you've experienced by being in close contact with them?
I won’t tell their names, not a chance. Someone knows. Just going to tell you they are good talents, ride in the Italian Under-23 national team and are in a World Tour team at the moment, and both have World Tour stage victories, too. It’s really strange because a lot played the game when they were juniors so you can talk with them during their growth. Everyone who practices cycling can be a pro in the future but now simply is a player who uses our stages, our jerseys and our packs. I should like one guy that retired as young that keeps me in touch with them because he was in the same group of Juniors in Italy National Team and sent them to talk with me.
I often talk to them when they have some time, commenting races, and they give a really different view of what happens in them, before and after the race, than the one you see on TV and comments, it’s also really “strange” from my point of view see in racing with Contador, Froome and all the best guys with I talk on Facebook or Whatsapp since years, it’s not simply like supporting an abstract champion like Contador with no chance too met or know him.
I just also did a research in our user database and found other guys in our users that are actually pros but posted in the forum 3-4 years ago. So, remember, everyone there can be a future professional even if they are usually shy and undercover.
Anything else that you would like to add?
People of Daily. Take your PCM, go play online. I want to see you in the next World Cup. And if you can, download my stages as well! |
