In an interview with Clément Pinget done by the Dutch site PCMWereld.com, more info on PCM09 is being revealed. Although it's not the usual "reveal it all", we do get to learn a little bit more about what to expect - but when it comes to new features and what we won't see in PCM09.
One of the new things that we'll definitely see in 09 is virtual rankings, like you also see on tv from time to time. E.g., if you have a rider in the lead on Mont Ventoux, and he's the Virtual Leader, this will now show up in the game at fixed spots. Small, but quite nice feature, I'd say.
When it comes to track cycling, Clément mentions that there's new velodromes added (we knew that). One of these velodromes will be out in the open air (we didn't know that ;)). The other two are in-door and will look pretty much like in PCM08, but with more details.
And when it comes to details, many have been wondering if PCM09 will require even more computer power than PCM08 did. In the interview, it's said that the requirements won't differ much from PCM08 - luckily for some of us ;)
In general, there's more 'denials' than 'confirmations'. Clément Pinget, although indirectly, denies the rumour that a cyclo cross game is on its way. He does say, though, that it's something that Cyanide is looking at to potentially expand the commercial value in some countries. He also denies that track cycling will become a part of career mode, although this has been much wished by some communities. Also, Pinget mentions that it still - like in PCM08 - won't be possible to 'take a lap' on the peloton in track mode, which isn't quite ideal considering the fact that disciplines such as points race and scratch have been implented in PCM09.
As with last year, Cyanide has decided to let people sign up for beta testing of Pro Cycling Manager 2009 -- so this is your ultimate opportunity to put your mark on the game.
There's a few requirements, though: You'll have to have a lot of free time available for playing, you need a good internet connection (there's many beta versions released, so you'll have to re-download quite often), a good general knowledge on PCM, wants to play online. It's not required to have a supercomputer since Cyanide need testers with different configurations - so even if you have a bad or medium computer, that shouldn't stop you from applying.
The beta testing will start on April the 20th, and the last day for applying is on March the 24th.
As we've seen previously, PCM.daily always tries to come up with new ideas and features. In late-2008, we launched the Fantasy Betting game, and now it's time to present the latest addition: PCM.daily's Shirt Database!
As the name suggests, it's a collection of shirts, making it very easy to find exactly what you're looking for. Everyone can submit new shirts to it, meaning that it'll constantly grow in size. Currently, there's more than 500 shirts there - and counting ;)
We hope that everyone will use the Shirt Database, either for finding the shirts that they're missing or for submitting their latest creation. Try it out now by clicking 'Shirts database' in the left-hand menu.
A huge thanks goes to the coder of it, AaB-ern, who's once again overdone himself.
A week or two ago, we announced that we were looking for new crew members. We're still going through the many applications, but at this point, we're ready to say hello to the first new guy in the crew -- fenian_1234 (and not his Norwegian clone, Fenian-1234).
Fenian_1234 was an excellent help during the DB building process, taking care of the entire equipment part of the DB, plus making several other graphics for the DB (e.g. some team logos). He has also proved to be very helpful towards you, the members, e.g. by writing a tutorial on how to add equipment to databases.
We're looking forward to having fenian onboard as we're sure he'll be able to contribute greatly to the site, especially in terms of new ideas and iniatives.
It's been a while since we last had an update about PCM.daily's 2009 DB - mainly because we all needed a break after the rather hectic release of the V2. However, we're back in action now with the ambition to make a good, final V3 release (as planned from the beginning).
As we've mentioned in previous updates, the main idea of the V3 is to keep (+/-) the amount of new teams and races which are already in the DB. Instead, the main work will be done on the polishing part. One of the annoying things about the DB is the rather unrealistic startings fields - at times, you'll see Gobernacion del Zulia participate in a Norwegian race. The reason for this is simply that Norway and Venezuela are in the same nationality group in the DB (other countries). It's a rather huge job to add new nationality groups, which is why it wasn't done for the V2 - however, I'm happy to say that this is one of the things that we've already changed for the V3. Instead of the current 7 nationality groups, the V3 DB will have 13.
Some of you may wonder why we don't just go ahead and add all countries to the nationality groups. We would - but PPDB's tests have previously shown that PCM simply can't handle that amount of data. Therefore, we're keeping it at 13 which, in the early tests, have shown great results in terms of team participation.
Another thing that we've been working on is more scouting zones. And as with the nationality groups, I'm happy to announce that this is also going quite well so far. In-game, we now have 58 (15 more than in V2) different scouting zones, including new countries such as Venezuela, Cuba, Finland, Mexico and South Africa.
Other than that, we'll make sure to completely update all teams to 2009, adding more and new 2009 race routes, and adding more 2009 team equipment.
In terms of release date, we're going for some point in April. It may be earlier, it may be later.
