Thanks to everyone

As we've been mentioning a couple of times, we're now trying to make the V3 work properly which is done by removing stuff from the DB. The current setup is the V3, but with the objectives, races, stages, race  programs (and everything else related to races) from the V2. Unfortunately, I'm hung up my exam project and therefore don't have time to test every single version of that DB that I make.

Therefore, we're looking for one or more who have time to simulate 1 season (until April 2010) with the databases that we make. I'm actually quite confident that this version works, so it may only be this one you have to test.

The requirements are 1) that you have the V3 installed, and 2) that you can simulate a season quite quickly after we've given you the DB (c. 24 hours).

PM me if you're interested.

It's been a while - it's been a long while. But with the PCM.daily DB out (and withdrawn), I now feel like returning to some of the 'projects' that I were doing before the DB work. This includes the Weekly News which have been on hold ever since end November, but with PCM09 coming up, databases being released regularly and interesting 'scene' news, the need for the Weekly News is greater than ever - so here it is, the Weekly News are back.

Advanced Editor ready to take on PCM09
Along with PCM08, one editor was released. It couldn't edit all that much, but for the average user, it was more than enough with its features to edit teams and rider stats. For the advanced database makers, the Full Editor, also known as Advanced Editor, by Cyanide employee Eyolfur made it possible to make deeper changes. Yet, for a while, there was still no editor to edit the Local.cdb, which is very important e.g. when adding races. The fourth version of Full Editor made this possible.

However, there's good news for all database makers who're planning to buy PCM09: The Full Editor V4 is fully compatible with Pro Cycling Manager 2009. The database structure has, of course, changed a little, so it's not possible to just copy over an entire PCM08 DB to PCM09, but with the Full Editor available, we can actually hope for 'advanced' databases quite shortly after the release of PCM09.

Are you the world's best PCM08 gamer?
Usually, a young hopeful will try to host a World Championship in Pro Cycling Manager. It hasn't really been going to well with that for pretty much an eternity, but this year, it does actually look brighter. It's hosted by the official Benelux sit, PCMBenelux with the well-known and top-quality shirt maker Messi as main organizer.

As far as I have understood, this is not a competition to see who's the best overall - there'll be a competition in three events: keirin, elimination and road cycling, each taking place on a specific date. So if you want to become known as a world champion, this is your chance.

Head to http://www.pcmwc.com and have a look.

Pictures from Amstel Gold Race 2009
As some of you may or may not have noticed, we have a section at this site called 'Member Photos' which allow our members to upload their photos from races they've 'spectated'. Luckily for us, Wyman went to see the Amstel Gold Race, and he managed to get some amazing photos from the event, including one of the grand finale between Ivanov and Kroon.

You can see the rest of the photos by clicking here.

Plans for the PCM.daily DB
Although we did kind of present the plans in the 'PCM.daily DB Withdrawn' news article, I'd like to clarify some things to avoid getting more private messages and e-mails about it (uh, I'm being naive now):

First of all, yes, we do plan to finish it. And hopefully, it'll be this month - but of course, we'll have to be able to fix the wierd bugs in March / June before being able to put it out. If this turns out to be very time-taking, we might release an update to the 'okay working' V2 with updated teams and graphics - time will tell.

Other 09 DB Projects
In the mean time, why not have a look at the other released 09 DB Projects? First of all, there's Altehacke's P&A 09 DB which, after a few fixes, now seems to be working fine. It has updated teams, a few new races and additional equipment, so it does cover the basics. Check out this thread for more information.

Secondly, there's the other German DB, RSM News DB. For some reason, they don't want their project hosted by PCM.daily, but with that said, the links are still available from the original thread. In terms of amount of teams, the DB has pretty much the same (or more? I don't quite remember) number of teams as the PCM.daily DB, but unfortunately lacks in other areas, e.g. new races. Check this thread for more information.

Lastly, our French friends, Imthebestcoach and bobcatsman, are making a DB along with a bunch of other members from the Cyanide forums. It's a huge project, and for the very same reason, it's not finished yet. The beta has been released though and is said to be working quite well. You can read more about it here.

Due to the rather huge problems with the PCM.daily 09 DB V3, we've decided to remove the downloads from the DL section.

As previously mentioned, it's a difficult situation since the bug's not easy to fix like bugs usually are. However, we'll now do some back tracing where we try to incorporate changes from the V3 to the V2 and check if it works. Hopefully, we'll sooner or later be able to release a V3 Final without any March or June bug - or any other bugs for that matter, but that might be too much to hope for.

That said, it's not top priority. Personally, I have an exam project which is due for the end of next month. Due to the DB work, I'm not as far in the process as I could hope for at this stage - and that basically means that any DB work will be done in breaks, late nights where I have nothing elde to do, etc., etc. Therefore, don't expect anything any time soon.

Lastly, it's of course demotivating to see something that you've been working so intensely on for so long 'go to waste' - but on the other hand, that's also what motivates me (and the rest of the crew) to continue and at some point release a Final Version. Letting all this work go to waste would be a huge shame.

As quite a lot of people have noticed by now, it's impossible to progess to the next day on the 7th of June 2009. This is probably a consequence of the solution we applied on the DB to fix the March bug - but unfortunately, fixing one bug has resulted in another just as bad one (in fact, two).

We've pretty much no idea what to do. If we 'undo' the fix for the April bug, well, we have the March bug again, making it impossible to play more than 1 season. The ideal solution would be to solve both of them - but how?

Either way, it's time for a thinking break. For those who'd like to continue playing, you can quite easily get past the date using an editor. Download Hannes Converter and open your save game. Open the GAM_config table. Scroll across to gene_i_date and change it to 1244462400 . Save, click the Disc icon, overwrite your save game and click the GAM_config table again in the window that pops up. Click OK and you're good to go.

We're of course sorry about all the problems - but then again, we had never seen this coming...

As always with releases here at PCM.daily, we get off to a rough start. Hopefully, the major 'annoyances' are now fixed, though. The problem we've now is that there's some major confusion when it comes to the versions, so my advice: If you've downloaded the Main File, that being either V3.0 FULL or V3.1 FULL, please update your game with the V3.2 Updater.

If you're still yet to download the PCM.daily DB, you can download the V3.2 FULL without having to download everything else.

Fixed in V3.2:
- The Tour of Qinghai Lake's last stage now has the correct date

Fixed in V3.1:
- Mini shirt for Aisan Racing Team now has the correct file name
- It's now possible to play with the four new teams: Aisan Racing Team, Cyclesport.se, Subway - Avanti and Verandas Willems