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Weekly News #42
The 42nd edition of the Weekly News is here. Time is flying away! ;)
Ladder DB for non-ladder games For the ranked ladder games (in GameCenter) you will automatically be using a so-called Ladder DB which will make all teams equal. This means that everyone has the same possibility of winning - it's not about who gets the best teams first. Unfortunately, this DB is not available for those who want to play unranked games - or, at least not until now. Aab-ern has made a Ladder DB like the one from Gamecenter, so it's possible to have equal games when playing unranked games.
Patches for the Eternal DB Well, seems like the Eternal DB was not as tested as Digitizer said :P The first two patches for the DB has now been released, and there's another one coming. The first two patches fix bugs which appeared in some of the variant-files in 2008 and 2013. Other than that, it adds 61 new tours and other minor bug fixes.
A new bug has been discovered which will make the game crash whenever the AI don't have enough riders to be at the races they have registered for. This will be fixed in the next patch which will also include even more new scouting zones. I suppose it would be the best to wait for this, but if you can't wait, download the first two patches here.
Roadie with yet another pack Roadie has released the first pack in his new "Continental Team Pack Series". In these packs you will find lots of graphical stuff for continental teams, including water bottles, glasses, overshoes and more. The first pack includes the following teams: Team Sparkasse, Tinkoff Credit Systems, Barloworld, Amore & Vita, OTC Doors, DFL Cyclingnews.com, Cinelli - Endeka and Yawadoo Mobile. I've noticed that people have difficulties with installing his packs, because there's no Read Me included. Whenever I got time to write an installation guide, I will do so -- promise!
Yet another Titan05 Trailer T-Photon has been advertising for his database for a very long time now. There's still 18 days to go before it's released, but if you want to see how it looks like yet another time, T-Photon has released a new Zürich - Metzgete trailer. It's a PCM07-replay, meaning that you can watch the entire race by using PCM. Download it from here and extract the contents to My Documents/Pro Cycling Manager 2007\Replay. The shirts (and other files) won't be correct, but you will still get an idea of what the DB is like.
The most popular DB is ... Not surprisingly, the excellent PCM Spain 07 DB won our "Which DB do you use"-poll. Actually, it managed to get 61 % of the votes - pretty amazing and way ahead of all other databases. On 2nd place you find the Eternal DB with 9 % whiile the rather old PCMGeeks DB has 6 % of the share. For some weird reason, 5 % of you are still using the original database. In total 477 people voted which I think is the record for amount of votes.
Our new poll is about which Pro Cycling Manager game you think has / is the best one until now - vote now! ;)
Site Updates Most of you probably already know this, but I've worked on a few things which have annoyed me lately. It's now possible to embed YouTube videos to the forum, a feature which has already been used a lot in the Funny Things-thread :) Anyway, it's pretty simple to embed videos: Click the "youtube"-button on the forum, and the youtube-tag will appear. Inside the youtube-tag, you need to put the video code -- not the entire URL. Example: Let's say I want to show "Is Bush an idiot?" on PCM.daily. The link for that movie is http://youtube.com/watch?v=whhbPVrb5KM - however, you only need the video code which is the one I have highlighted in red. Therefore, the youtube-tag will look like this: [youtube]whhbPVrb5KM[/youtube]
I've also removed the old smileys and replaced them with some "new" ones - and added a few new extras, too. The dancing banana () seems to be very popular ;)
Digitizer's huge work, the Eternal DB, has now gone into its 2nd version. The first version had its problems, but seeing how extremely large the DB is it was quite understandable. The DB is now even larger (450 mb, packed) and contains more features than ever before. As Digitizer himself says, "(it) has 100 races more than the biggest databases for PCM07". Other than that, well, there are too many features to mention them all, but you will get 136 teams (ex national teams), 2397 riders, 395 races throughout a season, and so much more. You can view the entire feature list (written by Digitizer) in the file description of the file.
fIt's Tuesday, and that has throughout the past couple of weeks meant that it was time for the Weekly News -- and today is no exception, although we don't have much on the programme :)
Cyanide and the future
Well, this is not exactly "news", but since I don't think anyone has actually noticed I thought it would be good to bring up. In July, 2007 Cyanide opened another office, this time situated in Montreal. It was said that "the development team will be working on new game technologies as well as on a yet-to-be-announced project". Here, a few months later, the first informations about a new game by Cyanide has slipped out: "Cyanide is currently working on a massively multiplayer game. More information will be made available later in the development cycle.". It's not much information, but it's still interesting that Cyanide will now be working on a Multiplayer game.
For those who don't know, Cyanide has made other games than Pro Cycling Manager. Cyanide shocked many with their "Horse Racing Manager"-series, and surprised many by going up against EA with their "Pro Rugby Manager". They have also made "Winter Challenge", a sports game, focusing on the winter sports. Last, but not least, they have been working on "Loki" for a while now, and they are also working on a crazy game called "Blood Bowl". And PSP is not the only platform, Cyanide is experimenting with at the moment. They are also working on a game called "RunAway" for Nintendo DS.
.. So, I guess this means the end of calling Cyanide a small company?
What do we know about PCM08 so far? PCM07 have only just become playable (with patch 1.0.3.1 and PCM Spain), but the first rumours about the next game is already spreading around. Because of the PSP-version's new way of sprinting and time trialing (which you do by tapping some buttons), some people have said that this feature might be converted to the PC-version, giving the game a more arcade-feel, probably. Clément Pinget also mentioned in a thread at the Cyanide forum that they are looking into the possibility of letting the "player manager" be the national coach instead of leeting the AI choose which riders that will compete in the World Championship. Other than that, Cyanide has declined to reveal anything at the moment. All they are willing to say is that they have restructured the organization, and that will, according to Cyanide, mean that they will now be "be more careful than ever to the final quality of the game.", to quote Clément Pinget himself.
Time will tell if he's right, but I'm pretty sure I have heard that line before :P
No Multiplayer in the PSP-version Well, enough of Cyanide -- or, well, not. Cyanide released the English PSP-manual to the public last week, In the first version of the manual, a great "Multiplayer"-mode was described. However, there's no Multiplayer mode is in the game, and the manual has now been replaced by a new version which doesn't mention any Multiplayer mode. Cyanide did actually implent the MP-mode, but because of a bug which only appeared very rarely, Sony forced them to remove it.
A Real Name DB Cyanide has released an official Real Name DB, especially made for Patch 1.0.3.1. This is, however, a bit confusing. According to the official fix list of the patch, there's no changes to the DB. Therefore, there shouldn't be any need for a new DB -- so, maybe Cyanide did alter the database a little? ;)
PCM.daily is searching for a programmer With 4600 users it should be possible to find just one programmer. PCM.daily is now searching for a programmer who's willing to help out the site by making a few new features. The current crew got lots of ideas, but don't have the neccessary skills needed to make the ideas real :) Therefore, if you're interested, send me, CrueTrue, a Private Message or contact me through the "Contact" form, MSN or E-Mail. We don't have any specific requirements (except programming skills), so just apply if you feel you will be able to help us.
To take full advantage of all corrections and changes, we would advise that you start a new career.
CAREER * Correction to bug on Giro 2008 : the stage number 4 is now considered a flat stage instead a mountain one. * Correction to bug on creation of young amateur riders (same surname/forename) * Refinements to allocation of new budget. * The income from the sale of a rider is now added to transfer funds. * Correction to bug which could prevent a significant improvement in budget after being promoted. * Refinements to appreciation of contract offers. The rider takes a little less account of his morale in order to accept more easily offers from other teams. * Refinements to contracts : it is now possible to recruit good riders when managing a continental team that will be promoted at the end of the season. * Refinements to the influence of the status given in race simulations. Rider morale drops more easily if race status does not correspond to status in contract. * Corrections to a message that, in some cases, could block a player. * Correction to a bug in the monthly awards on the Magazine tab * Refinement to "Fighter" attribute generated for young amateur riders. * Adjustments to simulations : a few more gaps created during hilly stages * Scouts with a "Mythical" reputation give more exact feedback on a rider's potential
INTERFACE * Correction to display of budget for past year on the 15th October financial statement.
(And this is embarrasing. Actually, the news were posted yesterday, but I had made a mistake, meaning that it was only viewable by me -- nobody else.)
1.0.3.1 will be the last patch Cyanide is currently working very hard to get the next patch done, and they are really determined to get rid of all the bugs. Why? Because they would like this patch to be the very last one, so they can get started on PCM08. On the beta-forum, Clément Pinget mentioned that this will be the last patch unless a new major problem pops up.
Clément also confirmed today that Cyanide is hoping to release the patch to the public by the end of this week.
How to install the PCM Spain DB Even though it to us nerds is a simple procedure to install the very popular PCM Spain DB, it might not be just as easy for newcomers / non-technical guys. Therefore, Addy has written a guy which explains in details how you install the database. It should be fairly easy to do if you just follow Addy's steps. Read it here.
Titan05 DB to be released soon The release date of the long-awaited Titan 2005 database by T-Photon has now been announced: the 5th of November! The DB contains 90 playable teams, 2500 riders, 350 races, 1000 stages, new 05 race profiles, etc. - basically, a perfect historical DB for career playing and / or single race.
Scandinavian Championships Last year, PCMGeeks (Later PCMDK.dk after a split-up in the crew) was the host of the Danish Championships in PCM06, but this year, the competition changes a bit. This year, PCMScandinavia.com got the rights to host a championship, and they've decided to change the entire structure. The competition is now for all Scandinavian people, and not only danes. So far, there's 55 people subscribed, most of them are Danes, but there's also a few Norwegians. So far no Swedish people have registered, so take this as an invitation ;) You can read much more about the tournament at PCMScandinavia.com.
National Jerseys If you are feeling 'inspired' by the recent World Championships and wish you could play as some of the national teams then you may be interested in downloading this pack of National jerseys that we have collected. It contains 31 National jerseys, from different countries. Also, the Danish member, Lampert, has made a World Championship DB, making it possible to play with national teams. If you want to play the World Championship you will have to go through a little complicated process, but everything is explained in the Installation-description in the file. You can download it here.
Ladder DB finally available Lots of people have asked for this, and now Aab-ern has finally made what many of us have been waiting for: a Ladder DB! A Ladder DB is a database with equal stats for teams and riders, giving everyone a fair chance when playing online. It's known from the Gamecenter where you're also playing with a ladder DB. However, with this one you're able to play all stages, and you don't even have to be on the buggy GameCenter software :) It's an early version, but it should work pretty well. You can get it from our DL-section.
You guys are not very good at guessing We have had several "Who will win xxxxx"-polls this year, We have had Paris - Roubaix, Giro 'd Italia, Tour de France and the World Championships. None of the times did the majority give the correct answer, though. For Giro 'd Italy and Tour de France, you thought Ivan Basso would win. And in the Giro 'd Italy-poll none of you voted for Danilo Di Luca. In Paris-Roubaix, you said that Cancellara would win. He was closely followed by Boonen. O'Grady wasn't an option, but just 9 % of you said that another rider than the ones listed would win. Our latest example is the World Championship, and okay, I admit that the options were really bad. 30 % of you said that another rider than the ones listed would win, but the majority still thought Oscar Freire would win -- well, better luck next time ;)
Our new poll is about which database you use, so get started! If you have any ideas for the next polls, feel free to suggest them in the Favourable and Critical Comments-forum.
Minor site updates I've added two new functons to the site. First of all, I've added the Hall of Fame. Before that, we had a so-called Toplist. Both features are used to show who the most active users are. In the new Hall of Fame you can see different kind of statistics, for example who's the one who has posted the most, who has started the most threads, who has written the most articles, etc., etc.. I'll add more statistics to it later, You can view the statistics here. The 2nd new feature is very simple. It's now possible for you to suggest new links. New PCM-sites are starting very often, but it's not always that I notice them. Therefore, you can now suggest a new link for our Links database. You can also suggest other kind of links, for example cycling websites which are not already there. Start suggesting here!
) seems to be very popular ;)
