It's been a while since we last had a competition here at PCM.daily. So we've decided to hand out a few games during the World Championship weekend - one of the last races before you all start disappearing to unknown places only to return a few months later ;)

As some of the eagle-eyed members have already spotted, there's a star next to the two currently open bets. This indicates that there's a prize on the stake.

In the U23 Road Race, you can win Divinity II: The Dragon Knight Saga, a role playing game, and on Sunday, you can win Yesterday, a recently released adventure game, by guessing the next World Champion.

We have two more copies of each game up for grabs in two competitions that will be posted on Sunday.

All games have been kindly sponsored by Focus Home Interactive, the distributor of Pro Cycling Manager.

Is there really any better way to spend one of those endless train trips to and from work than writing the Weekly News? I don't think so, so here we go with yet another batch of news.

Updater available for the PCM.daily DB
It's now possible to get the PCM.daily Expansion Pack for Patch 1.3.0.0 in any 'flavour' you like. Both versions, the full one and the update that let's you upgrade from the Expansion Pack for Patch 1.2.0.0, are available as both torrents and on Rapidshare.

While we should never say never, it's likely that we're now ending development on the 2012 databases. Instead, our focus will shift to 2013.

Major databases released
Should the PCM.daily DB not excite you, there's plenty of other options at the moment. Camerluca, once one of the leading database developers of Pro Cycling Manager, has returned to the scene with his StanosBase that's based on the 'old' PCM.daily DB, but includes Ruben's stats, among other updates.

There's also the well-known A.S.O. DB which as per tradition delivers some high-quality graphics mixed with OlegTinkov's view of the world. You can never go wrong with that.

Flag Tag to make story writing a little less complicated
Our great programmer AaB-ern has been busy lately with first the Stage Databae and now a smaller, yet very useful addition to the forum: the flag tag (or BB code).

Basically, it's now possible to incorporate a flag into a forum post by simply using a BB code or pressing the flag in the drop-down box when writing a post. That's especially useful in stories where the writers tend to use the flags quite frequently.

World Championships get closer - both in the ManGame and reality
It doesn't happen very often, but from time to time our Management Game and reality does cross paths. That has happened now as we're taking on the World Championship.

In the the Management Game, the Team Time Trial (which is made of national teams) has already been decided with Netherlands taking the win. Whether that happens in Limburg is something we'll find out on Sunday.

For now, you can discuss the ManGame WC here and the 'real' World Championship here.

There's currently a stability issue with the website.

To some, the website works just fine. To others, there's periods of downtime where the site isn't accessible at all (that includes me).

This is due to the fact that the name servers of our domain provider, GoDaddy, are being attacked. You can read more about that here.

Obviously, we can't do a lot about it, but when shut out, you can get updates at our Twitter account.

We've warmed up to the release of the next Expansion Pack for quite a while - also longer than what we'd hoped for - but now it's finally time to release it.

It's a fitting description to name this release as one of the most complete PCM.daily databases ever.

A lot has happened since the first Expansion Pack for Patch 1.2.0.0. For example, we now have a total of 100 teams. We've brought back many of the American and British teams which we know that many of our members like to play with.

There's also a lot of new races not to mention the c. 50 variants that make a long career worthwhile.

Obviously, the stats have also been updated among many other changes. Check the full feature list here.

Anyway, let's move on to the release files. The only file available now is the full package as a torrent. Get it here.

Later today, a package which updates your previous Expansion Pack to the newest version will be made available as a torrent.

Tuesday or Wednesday, the files will start becoming available on sites such as Multiupload and Rapidshare.

Two issues seem to the most talked-about right now, so let me clarify:

1. The PCM.daily Expansion Pack for Patch 1.3.0.0 will be released tomorrow at between 11-12.00 my time.

2. There's a bug which is primarily hitting the forum right now. In some cases, an error message is displayed rather than the forum content. The posts will eventually show after a few refreshes.

We will try to get this issue rectified tomorrow. It's up to the host, though - it's not in our hands.