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Weekly News #23
Hello and welcome to this 23rd edition of the Weekly News. We are getting closer to the 2000 members mark, so it could seem like we are getting more and more popular - thanks to all for that! :)
New PCM 2007 section Today, there's precisely 1 month to the release of Pro Cycling Manager 2007. Therefore, we felt it was time to open up to the section which is dedicated to the upcoming game. As some of you might have noticed we have also opened up a seperate forum for the game.
As time goes, we will expand the section, so they end up looking like the current 06-section.
Beta Phase Two has started As said earlier, the beta tests have been split up into two phases. During the last week, the second phase started, and now around 45 people are involved in the beta testing.
Also, the 3rd beta was released to the testers, but because of some protection problems it's not yet playable. A fix for it will be released as soon as possible (probably tomorrow).
Trailer of the 2005 Titan Project T-Photon has worked on a very long time on a so-called Titan-project. It's a project like the PPDB Giant, but it's based on historical seasons. The first DB is based on the 2005 season, and now a trailer showing the features of the project has been released. It can be downloaded through RapidShare by following this link: http://rapidshare.com/files/32276122/TITAN05_Trailer_2.wmv.html
2007 Shirt Package - now in Final Version A few weeks ago, we said that a 2007 Shirt Package had been released. Since then, it has been updated several times, but now it has gone into "final version", meaning that it won't be updated anymore.
Another Danish website Believe it or not, but another Danish website has seen the light. Currently, PCMGeeks and PCMScandinavia exist (both for Danish people), and PCMFreaks will open soon (also a Danish website). Thursday, PCMDK opened - and while all this is happening, people are wondering whether or not there are enough people for all those websites...
Donations are welcome Repeat from last week We have currently received 0 donations. That is of course fine, but it also require us to be creative when finding space for the PCM 2007-files. With that I mean that we will have to remove most of our 2006-files when PCM 2007 is released and the files for that version starts being released. For us, having both is preferred, but since we are close to be out of space, and since I have limited money resources, donations are very welcome.
You can donate by clicking the "Paypal Donate"-button. You can pay with credit cards or through Paypal.
Without a doubt the main focus of this week's racing has been in Italy, at the start of the Giro D'Italia. Which, after Stage 6, is led by Italian Marco Pinotti of T-Mobile.
Di Luca the Mad
Danilo Di Luca has hit the headlines this week, and not just because he wore the Maglia Rosa for a few days. On stage 1, he was visibly angry with teammate Gasparatto, who crossed the line first to becoem the first leaders jersey. "I was not upset, it is important that we as a team win, It was great test for the team. ... I am not upset." Di Luca then took the lead the nextday as Gasparatto was held up in a crash, "It was too bad about the crash" Im sure we all belive him! Gasparatoo then took it back the next day before Di Luca took command in the first testing stage of the Giro. He then announced he planned to get rid of the jersey, which he has now done. Mad!
Tinkoff Away!
Tinkoff have been by far the most aggressive team so far, with Pavel Brutt and Mikhael Ignatiev both having been in 2 breakaways each, and Daniele Contrini was in the successful break of Stage 6, finishing 5th. It would take a brave man to bet against them winning a stage some time before the end of the Giro.
Mathieu Ladagnous won Stage 5 and took the overall classification in the 4 Days of Dunkrik. On Stage 6 Mark Cavendish took the last laugh, beating German Erik Zabel in the sprint and wrapping up the points jersey.
Italian Luca Celli leads the Rheinland-Pfalz Rundfahrt following victory in Stage 3 ahead of upcoming German sprinter Gerald Ciolek, who is 2nd Overall. Stage 2 was won by Steffen Radochla and Stage 1 by Uzbek rider Sergey Lagutin.
In the Olympia's Tour the Rabobank Continental team have dominated winning 6 of the 7 stages so far. Lars Boom is the current leader following 3 stage wins.
The UCI Womens World Cup continued in Berne, Switzerland as Lithuanian Edita Pucinskaite made a late attack and hung on to win. World champion Marianne Vos took 2nd with Oenone Wood 3rd. 4th placed Nicole Cooke continues to lead the standings ahead of Vos. Christiane Soeder a teammate of Cooke's won the prologue of the Tour de L'Aude today in the next installment of the World Cup. The tour has 11 stages altogether.
Today, the official website for Pro Cycling Manager 2007 was opened. It doesn't bring much new (except for the PSP-screenshots, that is), but these are the main points on the website:
" You participate in the true Tour de France 2007 and take part in all of the season’s big competitions.
An updated and improved database! More than 1500 cyclists, 180 races (Tours or traditional), and 520 stages.
Realistic management of a cyclist manager’s career. Gain experience throughout years and competitions, manage aspects of human relationships, training, finances, etc.
Direct the largest professional teams. A total of 61 official teams are available (Rabobank, Quickstep, Discovery Channel, CSC, etc.).
New gameplay possibilities reinforce the tactical aspect of the races with the introduction of the “observe” mode, Gruppetto, etc. The Artificial Intelligence of competitors is improved so as to offer behaviours that vary by objectives, situations, and needs. Get ready for even more competition this year!
Includes a race editor to create and modify your own 3D stages.
Playable in single-player and/or multi-player, up to 20 players over the Internet or a LAN: Simple Race mode, Tour mode, and Season mode."
The very first screenshots of the PSP-version have been released to the public. In these screenshots we can both see the management menu and the in-game screenshots. Have a look at them in our Screenshots-section: http://www.pcmdaily.com/photogallery.php?album_id=7
The Giro has started, but in the world of PCM that's not our primary focus ;) Instead, we want to hear much more about the upcoming game, but it has unfortunately been a quite uneventfull week.
Awesome feature in PSP-game Okay, this might just be me, but when translating the PSP-version, Pro Cycling 2007 as it is called, I noticed a fantastic feature which the PC-community has requested for a very long time. This is what the English translation (made by Cyanide) says: "The rider will go to the back of the group to pick up ""refreshments"". Each rider starts a race with 2 feeds, but as they drink regularly during a race it is possible for a rider to find himself with an empty bottle. When this happens a rider's info box will blink blue and as long as he is not refreshed there will be a negative impact on energy consumption.
When a rider heads to the back of the group to pick up ""feeds"" he will take enough for all team mates in the group. He will then work his way back up through the group and hand out the ""feeds"" to all those who need them at that moment (those with 1 bottle or less).
Be careful not to send a rider back to look for refreshments at a bad moment (a mountain climb, a succession of hills, ....) because it may be nigh on impossible for him to work his way back up through the group. Feeding is therefore highly strategic and must be planned ahead."
So, another step closer to reality! Basically, the above means that it's now possible to go back to back of the peloton and collect bottles for both the rider and his team mates. Before, in the PC-version, you had around 4 bottles (depending on the length of the race), and you wouldn't have to drop back in the peloton to collect bottles at any point. As said, the above is from the PSP-translation, so I have no idea if the same feature will be present in the PC-version.
Beta test, phase two Last week, I said that the beta tests had started which surprised many who thought they all would be invited to the beta tests. Well, I asked Freire about this, and he told me that they would have two beta phases. The first one started last week (the one mentioned in the Weekly News) while the 2nd one won't start before the start of this week (probably tomorrow). The 2nd one will also include more people than the 1st one, and this includes translators, new beta-testers, etc..
So, good luck to all who have applied!
World Championship - now, we have a winner I mentioned last week that a winner had been found, but as said in the correction, the World Championship wasn't even over at that time. A winner have been found now, and luckily for us, it was the one we "predicted" last week. A-Davis won ahead of Hush_WC while Stunt lost his 3rd place to Ciclopolizzi.
Congratulations - once and for all - to the winners.
Scandinavian website opened Back in the old Cycling Manager 1-days (yes, before the game was renamed to "Pro Cycling Manager), Scandinavian Online League (aka Cycling Manager.dk) was the most known CyM-ressource - not just for Scandinavians, but definitely also for the rest of the English-speaking community. A lot has happened since then - almost every language has its own website, but that has not stopped a group of people from starting PCMScandinavia.
The site is mainly in Danish at the moment, but some parts are also translated to Norwegian. No parts of the website are in English, though. You can pay it a visit http://www.pcmscandinavia.com .
Two new downloads Since most of us are waiting for Pro Cycling Manager 2007 we don't see that many new downloads. The past week, we did find two new, though. The first one is an update for the Stanosbase. The new update was scheduled and includes the promised stats update. It also ensures that the transfers are totally up to date (f.e. Jörg Jaksche at Tinkoff). The update requires the V1-version of the DB, too. Both can be found in our Downloads section.
The 2nd one is a background showing pictures of Team CSC. Since many of our users are Danish, that will probably a popular download ;)
No database converters for PCM 2007 ... yet Beta testers have reported that neither PCM Kicker Lite nor the converters work with PCM 2007. The maker of PCMKicker, the most advanced editing tool for PCM, Impish has already started building a so-called PCM Kicker New Generation which will work with PCM 2007.
About the databases, it's worth mentioning that the .cdb-format will stay (which was confirmed in our exclusive interview with Clément Pinget). Rumours had said that Cyanide would change format, but that is not the case.
Donations are welcome Repeat from last week We have currently received 0 donations. That is of course fine, but it also require us to be creative when finding space for the PCM 2007-files. With that I mean that we will have to remove most of our 2006-files when PCM 2007 is released and the files for that version starts being released. For us, having both is preferred, but since we are close to be out of space, and since I have limited money resources, donations are very welcome.
You can donate by clicking the "Paypal Donate"-button. You can pay with credit cards or through Paypal.
You participate in the true Tour de France 2007 and take part in all of the season’s big competitions. 
