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Weekly News #46
Due to the inactivity in the community, I decided to skip one week. Therefore, we have a special Two Week News Update :) Nice surprise, isn't it? ;)
Site updates Let's take the latest news first. The last couple of days I've worked on implenting some new features to the site. Both new "features" are small, but could become handy at some point. First of all, I've made it possible to include a poll in a forum thread. It's possible for all members. Guests (non-registered users) can see the poll, but not start one nor vote. You can watch it in action here. Looks nice, doesn't it? ;) Just keep in mind that you shouldn't use just to use it. Use it when it's needed and there's actually a point of using it. Otherwise, it will be restricted, meaning that only adminstrators will be able to make a poll.
2nd "feature" isn't a feature, but is more of a "making life easier"-thing ;) It's a new Member List-design. Before, you could only see the very basics in the member list, this meaning the username, status and date of joining. In the new "design" you can see whether or not the member is online / offline, the e-mail address, the location, posts and website. Check it out here.
PCM.daily's Management Game -- now at Le Tour Although we've been slower this year, the Management Game is still very enjoyable. We have now reached Tour de France 2008, and there are many great riders represented. For the overall classement, riders such as Di Luca, Valverde, M. Rasmussen, C. Evans, Contador, Sastre, Leipheimer, Dessel and many more, are represented, making the fight for the win really tough. The Green Jersey is no walkover either. Here we have McEwen, Boonen and Petacchi, the world's three best sprinters, battling for the jersey. Head over here and follow the results as they come in!
GCT releases their last pack The German CyM Team has released their very last package. They have now splitted up, although many of the members now are in the team of ECDB. GCT's package is a 2007 database, based on the V1 they released earlier this year. The new version includes 36 new teams, race logos for all the new races they have added, and lots of other graphical stuff. If this DB is as good as their 2007 project for PCM06, then it's definitely worth a shot ;)
2008 DB - now in V3 Silence and Lampert's 2008 DB was released a few weeks ago. This week, the V3-version was released, eliminating some of the many bugs which were present in the first databases. It also includes many more of the transfers which they had initially missed. So, all-in-all, it's definitely more playable now, although there's still a long way to go before we have a real 2008 package. This is a good start, though. Download the V3 here.
4 new backgrounds Some French guy named Vic3 has released 4 new very good-looking backgrounds. First of all, there's a Barloworld background with pictures mainly from all their triumphes during this year's Tour de France. For the British, who tend to like Barloworld, this might be worth taking a look at -- do so here! Next up we have a CSC background for all our Danish (and American?) visitors. It basically shows many of CSC's victories from the past years. Check it out here. Then we have a Caisse d'Epargne background. Here we see a lot of maillot jaunes, mostly being worn by Oscar Pereiro. I guess, this is something primarily for Smoothie ;) Take a look at it here. Last, but not least, there's a Quick Step background. I have to say that I dislike the team, but that doesn't make the background look any worse -- especially not when we have not one, but two world championships in it ;) Quick Step-fan? Download it here.
Back to 1994? Here's your chance Lots of historical projects are about to be released at the moment, and here's one of them -- a 1994 DB from the Italian community by a guy named Clecorda. He's relatively unknown, but it seems like this DB does what it's supposed to. It got the riders (Bugno, Rominger, Indurain, Armstrong, etc.), it got the teams, it got the jersey and it got the photos. Not any special extras, but who cares -- this is enough to take us back to the great year of 1994 ;) Go here and download your time machine.
What's coming up? Well, let's have a look at the date -- it's the 25th of November (okay, it's still the 24th in GMT time zone, but whatever). Let's count .. 25, 26, 27, 28. 28th? Oh, right, PCM.daily's anniversary! I'm not going to say anything detailed abouti t, but I would advice people to meet up that day. We do have a few things lined up - not much, but still a few. Looking forward to see you all celebrate the day with us ;)
1 day late, here's the Weekly News in its 45th edition.
First 2008 database The two Danes, Silence and Lampert, have made what seems like is the very first 2008 database for Pro Cycling Manager 2007. In the "release announcement", it was said that all transfers up to 4th of November had been included, but several members have already reported that some transfers have not been included - also including some of the more serious ones. Discovery and Unibet.com have been removed, but instead you get Rabobank CT, Toyota and Maxbo Bianchi are in. Barloworld and Slipstream have taken Discovery's and Unibet's spots in the Pro Tour. If you want to give it a try, download it here. I would, however, advice to wait for a better project ;)
A new historical project Out of nowhere, a new historical project has been released. It's made by a French guy who calls himself "Orbea". It's based on the 80s, going from 79 to 81, and includes teams from 13 different countries, totalling 61 teams. Next to that, you also get all the jerseys and accessories you need. You also get a new realistic calendar. So, basically, a very interesting project if you're into the historical years. Go get it here.
A patch for the Evans DB As always, Evans has released a patch for his database. It doesn't include any fixes to critical bugs, probably because no critical bugs have been found, Instead, it fixes some problems with about 200 photos which were missing, Miya's new Mavic car has been added, and more minor things. If you downloaded the previous 658 mb file, download this patch.
Old news, but still interesting -- the acceleration skill doesn't work Actually, this is pretty old news, but since we forgot to report it here last week (and the week before that), I thought it would be right to report it this week: A member of the Cyanide forum has made some tests of different stats to see if they work. Only one of his tests have been confirmed and acknowledged by Cyanide -- the acceleration stat test. It proves that the acceleration stat has no effect in PCM07. Cyanide simply disabled the stat in order to fix the bug known as "bug d'elan", a bug which prevented attacks just before a hill / mountain from being succesful. However, it does seem like the acceleration stat has one effect: attacks. A rider with a high acceleration stat will attack more than one with a low acceleration stat. This, of course, only applies to computer riders ;)
The tests also indicate that the FTR-skill doesn't work. A higher FTR-skills should reult in more "green moments", but it doesn't seem like that's working correctly either. A rider with 80 FTR had just as many green moments as a rider with 50 in FTR -- sad, but true. This has, however, not been confirmed by Cyanide.
Stage Creation Contest is going on Cyanide's Stage Creation Contest has been extended until the 1st of December 2007. The last day for sending your stage was to start of with the 5th of November, but since only 5 people had sent in their stages the organizers decided to give more time. Basically, the competition is about creating a mountain stage which looks really good. If you win you can become a part of the Official Stage Creation team of PCM08. And you will probably also get a Cyanide game,
PCM07 is the best Our latest poll received 393 votes. The poll was about which of the Pro Cycling Manager-games are the best. Almost 50 % of the voters voted for the latest edition, PCM07, followed by PCM06 which received 33 % of the votes. What surprises me are the crazy 11 people who voted Cycling Manager 1 -- how can CyM1 be the best, I wonder? There was no real transfer system, you could win Tour de France with Erik Zabel, and there was no "turns" - all routes were straight. But oh well, everyone are entitled to their opinion ;)
.. and the new poll 1 year ago (or, well, almost) our site opened with a poll asking "How many percent of the professional cyclists do you think are doped?". Back then, 33 % voted "between 6 and 20 %". I thoughti t would be a good idea to have this poll every year, so now it's back to see if you think the mentality has changed in the professional peleton. As it is now, it doesn't seem like much has changed now. It's still the option "between 6 and 20 %" which is the most popular with 26 %, but I will let it run for a while. I'm looking forward to your answers :)
After yet another disappointment for me as a Dane (Mikkel Kessler's fight against Calzaghe yesterday), I'm now trying to recover. And this is one of my recover-methods :P
More new backgrounds for your game
It's been a while since we last saw a new background for PCM07, but it now seems like the graphic artists finally woke up again - or, at least TCharly did. Two of his backgrounds have been added to our download section. The first of them is the "Bettini - Evans - Cancellara"-background which shows pictures of the three superstars. The three of them are all riding in their special jerseys, the RR World Championship-jersey, the Pro Tour-jersey and the TT World Championship-jersey. It looks really good except for the fact that the Italian flag used as a background for Bettini is not the correct one ;) An even more popular background is the "General Cycling"-background. Basically, it's showing all the riders who have been interesting throughout the 2007 season. Cancellara is there, Cavendish is there, Contador, etc., etc. It does look really good, so go ahead and give it a try. And today, I added one more. It's made by Evans89 (formerly known as Rasmu89) and shows pictures of the CSC-captain Carlos Sastre - including some of his glorious moments, for example when he celebrated a win by sucking a dummy.
Beta versions go final This week has also brought two new databases. In fact, we have already mentioned these databases, but at that point they were in beta phases. Now, both projects have reached the 1st final version. The most interesting of them is the very first historical database for PCM07, the All-Time Historical DB. The DB has teams and riders from 1894 up until today, and in the pack you will also find the needed jerseys, photos and team logos - quite impressive. The final version also fixes a crash in the career mode, the riders who were added twice have had their "twin" removed, and a few more minor things. If you're interested in the history of cycling, this is a must!
The 2nd one is the Evans89 DB. His previous DB was called Rasmu89, but he has now made a new, updated one. I don't really see what's new in it, but it does include a lot of stuff. It's also the largest DB ever released to PCM -- 658 MB! One of the reasons is that it includes a lot of sound files. The French commentary has been changed a lot, new music has been added and new sound effects have been included too. Next to that, you get a lot of Miya's updates, photos for all riders, a new font and much, much more. I don't know if it's any good, but you're more than welcome to give it a try ;)
Pro Cycling for PSP review Our member, ChrisSteelAteMyHamster, has submitted his review of the PSP-game Pro Cycling which is also made by Cyanide. It's very well-written and also, surprisingly, very positive towards the game, saying that it's a "hidden gem". You can read it right here. As mentioned last week, everyone can submit their own articles. In the left menu, there's a link saying "Submit article" which can be used by the members. If your article is good and relevant, it will of course be added :)
PPDB releases final version PCM06 is far from being dead, and that's mainly thanks to the PPDB team which is releasing databases for the game. This week, they released the final patch for their 2007-database. In the new patch, you find a totally new scouting system, new team objectives, new graphics, real life travel expenses, four new teams and much, much more. You can read more about it and download it from PPDB's new portal website. This also means that PPDB will now concentrate on their two other projects: the 1980 DB and the 2008 DB, both for PCM06.
I'm very pleased to announce this: Dankan, the former leader of the PCM Spain DB-project, has joined PCM.daily as a crew member. Actually, it's the 2nd time he's in that position. Dankan was in the starting line-up when the site opened, but later had to withdraw due to other priorities. Now, he's back, ready to help the members with everything related to PCM, especially DB editing. Personally, I'm looking very much forward to yet another cooperation with Dankan. Give him a very warm welcome.
After a delay of the Weekly News, we are now back. I was getting tired of posting the Weekly News in the middle of the week since it was only confusing. Therefore, we are now back at posting the news at the end of the week, preferably on Sundays. Sorry about the delay - I'm sure you've been eagerly waiting for it ;)
2008 stages With the 2007 season as good as done the first 2008 stages for PCM are beginning to be make its way. The community is working very hard at the Tour de France, which always takes a long time to do, but already now a few new stages and stage races have been released. In our DL-section, you will find the 08-editions of Tour Down Under and the Tour Down Under Classic, the World Championship in Varese and the Tour of Wellington. A few more will probably be released in near future, and when that happens they will of course also be added to the download section.
So, all we need now is a 2008 database. Get started, DB-makers!
More editing tips As you may have noticed, we have used a lot of time and space on making DB-editing easier for you. Our Articles-section is filled with articles about editing, and throughout the last week two new articles were added. One of them were submitted by our member, mrlol, who used the "Submit Article"-link in the Navigation Menu. It's not used a lot, but if you, as an ordinary member, writes a good article that you think PCM.daily maybe can use, feel more than welcome to add your article through that link. It may be published. In fact, I think most articles will.
Anyway, about the articles. Mrlol's article tells you how you change your sponsor goals, either making them more difficult or, more likely, easier. You can read it here. Addy returned from his holiday this week today, and he immediately began helping the members with their editing problems. That also resulted in one article, explaining how to add a new team. Enjoy!
Dankan leaves PCM-Spain Surprisingly, PCM-Spain's famous member, Dankan, the main leader of the PCM Spain DB-project, has left the site and also quit his job as an "adviser". This also means that there'll be no more updates to the PCM Spain DB. Dankan said that the old atmosphere was gone, the respect was gone, and that only a few guys were actually positive - things which all made it sad to be at PCM Spain's forums. This doesn't mean the end of projects by Dankan, though. He has said that he's very interested in keeping on working. Time will tell what projects he'll dig into.
Beta of the All-Time Historical DB StephenRoche from the Italian forum has released a so-called All-Time Historical DB. It contains teams and riders from 1894 (yes, 18, not 19) up until today. It's still in the beta-phase and contains a few bugs here and there (so don't start a career), but the beta gives a good overview of what to expect. I mean, Merckx vs. Coppi vs. Armstrong vs. many other old stars -- could it get any better? I don't think so. Download the beta here or wait for the final version which is released in the beginning of November. Keep your eyes on the DL-section! :)
Rasmu89's DB added to the DL-section While PCM.daily had its main focus on PCM06 I critized Rasmu89's DBs a lot for being very buggy and requiring more patches than PCM itself. Now (or, well, a while ago) he released a DB for PCM07 -- and you know what? Only one patch has been released since. So, it could seem like Rasmu89 finally got better at DB-editing :P You can download the rather large DB here and the patch here.
Speaking of Rasmu89. After Michael Rasmussen's Tour de France performance (:P), he has decided to change his nickname to Evans89. This, of course, also means that he had to make a new DB. As far as I can read (everything is in French, of course) it will be released in one week's time.
PCM Road Tournament One of our members (whom I have already mentioned earlier), mrlol, has started a so-called PCM Road Tournament. Basically, it's an online PCM tournament for the members of PCM.daily. You register for a team and meet up at fixed times to play some classics or a stage race. You're given points for your results, and at the end of the season the unofficial PCM.daily PCM07 Champion is celebrated ;) You can read everything about it here. It's 18 pages, but .. well, give it a try ;)
