With the new PCM fast approaching, this signals for an inaugural event, a huge event for the site: Ladies and Gentlemen, welcome to the forum awards 2007! 31 nominees will compete of 8 events, in a 10 day voting extravaganza: who wins, you decide. There will be 3 awards going to external members, in the categories of: Best Database, Best Database Team and Best Graphic Artist. The other 5 awards will be for internal awards, featuring Best Screenshot and the highlight of the awards, the CrueTrue award for Member of the Year. Voting opens now, visit the forums for details of how to vote by visiting each award category. Follow this link to enter the Forum Awards and start voting: Forum Awards 2007. Remember - every vote counts.
Another week of doping rumours - and another week of Weekly News. "Unfortunately", that's how the world of cycling is at the moment ;)
Official PCM 2007 forum opened This week, Cyanide decided to open up for their Pro Cycling Manager 2007 forums. With the new forums, they also made clear that there's no release date for the demo yet - so there's no reason to ask for it ;) Usually, the demo is released one or two weeks before the release, though, so we guess it will be the same this year.
Beta testing over On the 5th of June, the Starforce License Keys that the beta testers use expired. That also meant the end of beta testing. Now, Cyanide are using their time by fixing all the bugs which have been reported, and eventually the game will go "gold" -- be mass-produced. After all, there's not a very long time until the release.
During the coming week, the beta testers should get a new version, though -- and since we are so close at the final game, it will probably be a very-close-to-release version if it isn't the actual final release.
Get sponsored by PCM.daily -- in PCM 2007! Last week, we managed to get ourselves into the upcoming game. PCMdaily.com has been implented as a secondary sponsor in PCM 2007. Our primary markets are Great Britain and the USA while Denmark is our secondary market (because I'm Danish) ;)
Good luck -- and yes, we might sign with your team if it meets our goals (winning the Giro, TdF and La Vuelta :P)
Vote for your favourite icon! As we reportred last week, it has been possible to hand in suggestions for the PCM 2007 logo. The nominees have been decided, and you can now vote for your favourite on the Cyanide forums. Currently, Ataofcom leads with a huge margin (48%). His logo looks like this: http://www.mezimages.com/up/05/143409-IconePCM2007.png
The return of the screenshots As mentioned last week, the entire Open Bar-forum was deleted, and that also meant "bye-bye" to the new screenshots which were released by the beta testers. They have now been saved, though, and have returned to the new PCM 07 forums. Most of them have been available here at PCM.daily for quite a while, but there's probably a few in the topic at the Cyanide forum we have missed -- so, check them out here if you want to: http://www.cyanide-studio.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=52384
Scandinavian cover -- not the official one? Last week, we said that the German and the Scandinavian cover had been revealed. Now, rumours are saying that the Scandinavian one we published isn't the official one. Even though it has been published on the Scandinavian publisher's website, KeMedia.dk, it's only a temporary one which they use until the final one is ready. So, hopefully, Landis will not be present on the final cover.
2.0 Stanosbase released For those who are still playing PCM 2006, the Stanosbase 2.0 version was released by Stanos Libre earlier this week. Since the website of the DB is entirely in Dutch it's of course a little difficult for me to say exactly what has been changed, but I did notice that they have added several new 2007 stages, updated the stats (after the Giro), and much more.
If you decide to download it, remember to download both the 1.0 and 1.5-version before downloading and installing the 2.0 version.
Lots of forum activity So, how can we make the days go by until the release of the demo - and the game? Well, our users have throughout the last couple of weeks "developed" several games which are definitely worth spending some time on if you are not too busy.
First of all, there's our most meaningless topic until now - The Great Debate. Here we discuss the basics of life, such as whether you prefer coffee or tea, which languages you speak, etc.. So if you are up for some relaxing time, take part in "The Great Debate": http://www.pcmdaily.com/forum/viewthread.php?forum_id=17&thread_id=389
Smoothie has also set up a very enjoyable game - the "Caption Competition". The host (who most of the time is Smoothie) uploads a scaled picture - and it's now your job to figure out who's present on the picture and where it is taken. The game has already reached 16 pages. Join it here: http://www.pcmdaily.com/forum/viewthread.php?forum_id=11&thread_id=376
Today, Crommy started a new game which is quite equal to the game SportingNonsence started (but which have been stopped due to DB-problems). In the game you have the opportunity to get yourself into a PT-team of PCM 06 with all that it includes of training, racing, etc.. Read more about it here (and sign up!): http://www.pcmdaily.com/forum/viewthread.php?forum_id=2&thread_id=404&pid=6501
And who knows? A little bird has told me that we will have two great surprises for you during the next week. Can you guess what it is? :)
Our community has been saved! ;) Last week, one of our many polls ended. The question was: "Will you buy PCM 2007?" To this question, 74 % of you answered that you definitely would buy the game, 12 % of you said that you would most probably buy the game while only 8 % in total said that you would not buy the game at all. So, it seems like we will still have some visitors when the next game is released ;)
The new poll is also PCM-related (idea by SportingNonsence). Question is: "How much will you play PCM 2006 once you have bought PCM 2007?" - and if you haven't already voted, do it now! ;)
Donations are (still) welcome The banner implentation has been quite a success, and we have actually already reached our intermediate aim - and that also means that we have money enough to move to a much faster webspace which then again means that we can finally offer you very fast downloads. Currently, most of our files are hosted a free servers, and for the same reason the speed is very slow -- but with these new servers we will have lots of space and very fast download speeds. We won't be able to move before two to four weeks, though, but it will happen sooner or later.
But again, please remember to click the banners once a day. It's what keeps this site going financially :)
Cyanide has posted a Gameplay FAQ for the upcoming PCM 2007 on there forum. It explains more in depth the added functions like form of the day and observation mode like we have heard about before. It also shows some news about the green and blue bars and other things.
After an exciting Open Bar-event and a top Giro 'd Italia-stage to Zoncolan, relax by reading this week's Weekly News.
More covers revealed The German and Scandinavian editions of the PCM 07/8 cover have been revealed. The German one looks quite a lot like the French one (which I find a little sad), but it does have the German language ;) The Scandinavian is very different and focuses on the CSC-rider, Carlos Sastre, during a mountan stage. Oh, and notice Floyd Landis in the background -- is it good to have a doped rider on the front cover of a cycling game? :P
Click the screenshots to view them in full size.
Create the icon for PCM 2007 The betas still use the old PCM 2006 logo, and now you have the opportunity to create an icon which will represent the 2007 game - both the demo and the final version. The original forum thread about this "contest" is in French, so I don't know the exact details. But you can read all about it here: http://www.cyanide-studio.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=52148 . You can also view the icons which have been made until now.
Good luck!
Beta testing continues With under a month to the release, the 6th and 7th beta was released during this week. And a few days ago the Alpha version was released. Weird thing is that a beta is supposed to be released _after_ an Alpha version, but oh well - doesn't matter much. Fact is that this Alpha version really proves that Cyanide has focused a lot on stabilizating the game and adding the last few things which missed - it now seems quite close to the gold version.
All the translation have also been handed in, and the available languages of the game will be: English, French, German, Dutch, Italian, Spanish, Danish, Portuguese, Norwegian ... and even Japanese. I haven't tested if those languages are actually available, but you can choose them ;)
New 3D-objects for PCM 2006 Actually, this is pretty old news, but I simply hadn't noticed it before now. Miya, a Japanese member of the Cyanide forum, has worked on changing some of the 3D-models of the game. This has resulted in a director car being changed into a helicopter which follows the peloton, the helmet being changed into a cap (perfekt for historic databases), and more.
More PSP-screenshots InsideGamer, a Dutch website, has released some more screenshots of the PSP-version at their website. For those who are not used to PSP-graphics, the screenshots might not look too good, but personally, I think they are acceptable for a PSP-game.
PPDB delayed? In the special edition of the Mid-Week News, I said that the PPDB was supposed to be released on that particular day or the following day. That hasn't happened, though, and no new date has been given. Some of the problems PPDB has run into is that they don't have any 2007-editions of the Grand Tours, f.e. the Giro, Tour de France, etc..
Open Bar ended with a scandale After having answered questions for about an hour, the entire Open Bar section was suddenly deleted by a not yet known guy. Some of the answers had been saved by Aroda, but the - until then - succesful event edged out after "the attack".
We at PCM.daily are currently considering organizing a similar event.
Banner implented As I "warned you" last week I would implent a advertisement banner at the top. I also mentioned that it could cause some problems while the "surgery" progressed - and it did. For several minutes, you couldn't even access the site - and for even more minutes, the top bar was pretty messed up. The "surgery" was completed without further complications, though ;)
Now, I just hope you will click the banner once a day. If you do that we will eventually reach our goal - to be able to buy fast, reliable web-space. I have also decided to let you guys know what our goal is - and what we have reached so far. Tihis "feature" have been implented in the Donation-panel below the "Users Online"-panel.
I'm sure you are all well aware about the precedings in the Giro over the past couple of weeks, so I see no need in writing much about it. But just in case youve missed the whole of the Giro here's a brief summary:
Di Luca will win by 2 minutes over the surprise of the Giro Luxembourg Andy Schleck. Saunier Duval controlled the mountains with Piepoli, Simoni, Ricco and Mayo all winning stages. Petacchi is one of the few sprinters remaining and should take an easy victory in the Sprints competition.
Now, onto the other events.
In the ProTour event Volta a Catalunya, Spaniard Vladimir Karpets took overall victory ahead of Michael Rogers and Denis Menchov. Caisse D'epargne won the opening TTT before Mark Cavendish and Allan Davis won mass sprints on Stages 2 and 3. Oscar Sevilla won Stage 4, with Denis Menchov winning the Stage 5 Mountain TT. Stage 6 saw a second win for mark Cavendish and the final stage was won by Samuel Sanchez.
In the FBD Insurance Rás German Tony Martin won despite not winning a stage. Nico Graf won one, Brian Kenneally and Mart Ovajee bagged 2, with Canadian champion Dominique Rollin winning 3.
The Tour of Japan was won by Italian Francesco Masciarelli ahead of 3 Kazakh riders who finished 2nd, 3rd and 4th.
In Germany, the Bayern Rundfahrt is taking place, André Schulze of Wiesenhof took a surprise win in Stage 1 but could not repeat the feat as Stages 2 + 3 were won by Erik Zabel. Stage 4 was an Individual Time Trial won by Stefan Schumacher, while Frank Schleck reminded us that there are 2 Schleck talents in the peleton, by taking 4th, leaving him 4th Overall.
Vladimir Gusev currently leads this year's Tour of Belgium following victory in yesterday's time trial. He has a 39 second lead over last year's winner - Martin Tjalingii. Today's stage was won by Birthday boy, Robert Gesink. There's nothing like taking your first Professional win on your birthday! Earlier in the week, Walter Weylandt had won Stage 1 and Gorik Gardeyn had taken Stage 2.
Over in USA, officials completely messed up on Stage 1 of the Mount Hodod Classic as they awarded a relatively unknown amateur Devon Vigus, the stage victory for the Time Trial. The real winner was infact Aussie Nathan O'Neill, who currently leads the standings ahead of Phil Zajicek after Stage 4.
Finally, in South Africa David George has won the National Time Trial Championships.
