Well, we've had our short month of August, and September is just around the corner. More importantly, the Vuelta starts in something like 5 days time, and so now is the time to get your transfers in for that!
Many of you seem to have got your leaders sorted for the Vuelta in the August transfers, so perhaps a changing of your lower priced riders for riders riding the Vuelta might be a sensible tactic, or even cashing in on a few to get one more good bet for lots of points might also work in your favour. Regardless, the Vuelta is the key for the season, especially with so many teams close together on points (or so I'm guessing...)
June and July points should be up shortly, but not before the start of the Vuelta, and I'm not going to blame any participants for losing interest either! Should the game run next season, additional help, and a revised points structure should ease the pressure and time constraints somewhat, but I have my doubts as to it's continued function. Either way, pop up some team transfers here, or PM them to myself [rjc_43] or SportingNonsense before the start of stage 1 (the prologue if I'm not mistaken - which I often am) of the Vuelta.
For other races, check out a cycling calender to work out who's doing what.
In other news, regarding points, the World Championship [road race] will be classified under the "historic/pro tour" classic title, so lots of points up for grabs at the end of the season too.
Cyanide responds to criticism over gameplay issues
For quite a while, there has been complaints about parts of the AI of PCM10 - especially after t became known that patch 1.0.3.0 was said to be 'final' and that the problems therefore wouldn't be fixed. On this forum, the problems have been summarized in 'Contador wins the mass sprint!'.
The discussions heated up last week when Cyanide (or what seems to be the moderators) started deleting critical threads and members from the official forum.
However, today, Cyanide published an official statement on the matter, saying that they are now working on a new patch. The problem with non-sprinters winning flat stages have been identified and will be fixed. They are still having problems with identifying problems with gaps in hills/mountain, but they are working on it.
You can help out by uploading replays of the problems. Use the official DB, make sure to enable replays in the options menu, and play the 'bugged' stages. Upload your replay (My Docs/PCM/Replay) somewhere and post the link here. It will then be forwarded to Talleyrand who forwards it to Cyanide.
Okay so while the title Weekly News may be stretching it a bit thin - a year since #76 - the Weekly News returns, for one week at least.
Tour de France Photos Missing the Tour de France already? Check out our Cycling Photos where lagetcher has uploaded 61 photos from throughout the race. From stage starts, to rest days, to the cobbled stage, to my personal favourite of the sprint finish of Stage 5.
Isolated Buildings The updated Stage Editor for PCM10, while a great improvement in many aspects, was missing many of the Isolated Buildings from previous games. But fear not, as Laurent has converted many of those to work in PCM10 - including the Bernabeu Stadium, and London Monuments. You can download them from this topic, where you can also see some of the work miya has been posting on the PPDB forum.
PPDB Databases Speaking of PPDB - from their forum you can download their two latest releases for both PCM10 and PCM09. Version 4 of their PCM10 database is updated for the latest patch - but looks set to be PPDB's last effort for the latest game, while they have also released their 2010 DB for PCM09.
Full Cycling Manager Also released is a French project called Full Cycling Manager with features including 148 teams, new scouting areas, updated stats, and new races added.
Variants in Progress A number of interesting projects are currently in progress to take advantage of Cyanide having finally readded the variant function to the game. Roturn has made 16 stages so far in his Tour de France variant, the 2008 route, while two fantasy Giro d'Italia variants are being made - Maethius is 16 stages in, while emmea90 will post all of his stages at once (although is currently on holiday). It's not just Variants being made though, a mixture of fantasy and real races are also being made and posted in our PCM10: Stages forum.
Fantasy Betting Don't forget to keep getting your weekly PCM$ through the link on the top right hand side of the page. An overall bet for the Eneco Tour is currently up, while there will hopefully be plenty of bets for the Vuelta a Espana, starting later this month.
With the release of the final patch for PCM2010, patch 1.0.3.0, an update to the pack was needed to make it fully compatible with the game. Instead of just updating it to patch 1.0.3.0, we also added a couple of new stuff, though:
First of all, lots of stages have been released and included with the update, including the first four stages of the Tour Down Under and the entire Tour of California - both of which have been very much requested by the community.
In addition to that, we've fixed the bugs that have been reported so far, added some new national champion shirts ... and yes, variants!
Since there are still no complete variant tours, we've made 1 variant for Giro d'Italia, Tour de France and the Vuelta a España by mixing existing stages with some of the fantasy stages provided by the community members. For example, the 2011 Tour de France now has an Alpe d'Huez stage and finishes on Champs Elysees with a time trial. We've also made a variant for Tour de Suisse which basically uses the existing stages, but in a different order and with an all-new uphill time trial. Lastly, there are variants for the World Championship and the World ITT Championship, including the real 2011 profiles for the World Championship in Copenhagen next year.
You will have to restart your career to benefit from most of the changes. Also keep in mind that you need the PCM.daily Expansion Pack before installing this one.
As always, there's a Bug Report Thread. Find it here. For the full list of features in the PCM.daily DB, check this thread.
Short update: Cyanide employee has stated that this is the very last patch for PCM unless other major problems come along. The stage patch is expected to be released around the 20th of August.
Today, another beta patch was released by Cyanide. Variants are now useable by the game, but no actual variants are added by the patch, so you will have to add some made by yourself or by the community.
These are the most important fixes included in the patch: - crashes at the end of the races for Win7+Max Details configs. - multiplayers issues + intermediate sprints for ladder (+ 5 new races) - some small career fixes - comeback of the variants for the career mode (for community packs)
