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Weekly News #66
Matti, Matti, Matti, Matti ... Breschel, Breschel, Breschel, Breschel ... and alright, Ballan did quite okay too. But who cares when a Dane wins a bronze medal? ;)
Visit Cyanide's stand at "Festival du Jeu Video" Although Cyanide didn't really care much for letting the English community know about this, it's relevant. Cyanide is attending the French event "Festival du Jeu Video" (A Video Game Exhibition). It will be possible not only to see, but also to play the long-awaited Blood Bowl for PC and TrackMania for Nintendo DS. So, if you're in Paris, France during the 26th and 28th September 2008, you might want to visit the official website of the event and have a look. Cyanide has also put up a competition to win tickets to the event. However, if you don't live in France you'll have to buy the flight tickets yourself - you can read more about that right here.
And if you're reading this, Cyanide, I'll gladly accept an invitation ;)
Dankan's back with new projects A while ago, Dankan, one of the best - if not the best - databaseurs in the PCM community, announced that he'd have to 'retire' for a while. Now, he's back and unlike other years, he's not going to work on 2008 or 2009 databases. Instead, he will use his skills on making historical databases, something which the community has been lacking the past two years. His first DB will be a 1990 DB and will be an update of a project he made for PCM06. He's also planned to make another historical DB after the 1990 one, but the year is still undecided. You can read more about his 1990 project here.
Two 2009 databases It's pretty much acknowledged as being a waste of time releasing 2009 databases now when the 2008 season hasn't even ended yet, and when the transfer season is still very active. But obviously, some people don't really mind that and release their databases anyway ;) The two released this week are pretty much alike. They are updated until the 24th and 25th of September, and Rooney's DB contains a Cervelo shirt. The other one is made by Karack33 and is available here.
... and two 2008 databases And while the 2009 databases are being spit out, so are the 2008 DBs. The newest one is made by the EuskalPCM community and contains a new race, Vuelta a Columbia. Other than that, it's pretty much the same, basic features as all other databases. You can download it here. The other one is in fact one of the older databases. It's been out for a while, but since the maker of it, Evans89, is known for making hundreds of patches I didn't get around to upload it until now when it seems like he's done releasing patches. The package which have been uploaded contains the main package, 3 patches, 1 pack of startlists, 1 shirt pack and one track DB - 423 MB. Interested? Download it here.
PCM.daily wins vs. PCM-Portugal As I have mentioned the past few weeks, we had lined up a match vs. PCM-Portugal in scratch. This took place Friday last week, and it was a great success. PCM-Portugal had some organizational problems as most of its team showed up very late, but in the end, we got to play the 3 rounds of 30 laps which ended up with PCM.daily, thanks to good tactics, leading Ruben to the victory in 2 out of 3 rounds, winning with 469 points against PCM-Portugal's 383 points. More importantly, the match also showed that scratch is very suited for online matches. Tactics have a great impact on the gameplay, and in opposition to elimination, it's not full-power all way. Conclusion: I think everyone had a fun time, also the Portuguese people, and we're looking forward to the next match, whatever that will be.
PCM.daily - now as a Facebook group Yes, it's true. You can now also support PCM.daily on Facebook by joining the group 'PCMdaily.com'. So far, there's 7 members, including Maggot, Doddy13, myself and Agger. I have no idea what we need it for, but I guess that's the consequences of being too bored at school at times ;)
The Vuelta has ended, and the World Championship started today with the U23 men's time trial which pretty much none of us care about. So, to get the time going, here's the 65th edition of the Weekly News.
Say hello to ... In Weekly News #63 I announced that we were looking for new crew members. I'm glad to say that we received a lot of applications which is also why that the reviewing process has been taken some time. However, everyone in the crew agreed on one guy to join us: the flying Dutch man, mrlol, who's also a site worker at PCMBenelux. He's been with the site for quite a while, and we believe that he's able to bring new ideas to the crew. That said, we'd like to thank everyone for their applications. There were several possible candidates between them, but since we don't want to end up with one huge crew we decided to stick with one guy for now - mrlol.
Time to edit Local.cdb Ever since the release of PCM 08, databaseurs have complained about the fact that it's been impossible to (fully) edit the local.cdb without the fear of destroying their work. So far, it's only been possible to edit the file with editors for PCM07 which could end up harming the file and thus destroy the work which the databaseurs have been doing. It was also one of the reason why the PCM Fusion DB was cancelled. However, the prayers have now been answered by Cyanide's Eyolfur, the man behind the Advanced Editor, who has now updated his editor, so it works with the Local.cdb file. One of the testers, Ruben, has said that it does it job perfectly, and it's therefore very likely that we're going to see large databases again in the future :)
Speaking of editors... ... let's not forget the Hannes Editor 1.1 which I mentioned in last week's Weekly News. In the comments part of the download, a lot of you have said that it doesn't work. I finally got around to test it out today, and it's true - it doesn't work, unless you install .NET Framework 3.5 which is available for free at Microsoft's website. Also, while testing it, I also noticed something very interesting: Like with the CLE-ditor, it's very, very easy to add new teams and riders with this editor. Although it's only available in German, it should be easy enough for everyone. You can download it from PCM.daily right here.
Downtime on GameCenter As most of you have noticed, Cyanide's server has been down for several days. This has meant that their website, including the official forums, have been down, but way more importantly, it's been impossible to use Cyanide's GameCenter which makes it possible to play Cyanide's games online. Bdufourd, the community manager of Cyanide, has explained it on several fansites websites, including PCM.daily in this thread. The server should now be up and running again, but they will be taken down at some point to solve some of the problems which have been caused by the downtime.
PCM.daily getting ready for match vs. PCM-Portugal And hopefully, the server will be up at 20:00 GMT on Friday when PCM.daily meets PCM-Portugal in a scratch race match on GameCenter. PCM.daily will be represented by doddy, Ruben, Smoothie, Crommy, Schleck1993, Mrlol, JustinWK and Waghlon, and they will play 3 rounds of scratch (30 laps, 1 sprint) to decide who's best at scratch race: the international people here at PCM.daily or the crying Portuguese from PCM-Portugal ;) You can read more about the race in this thread. Also, mrlol has made a "clanwar DB" for the purpose. Read more about it here.
It's Contador vs. Leipheimer, two Astana riders, in the Vuelta. Next year, it will be Armstrong vs. Contador vs. Leipheimer vs. Klöden in the Tour? Looking forward to that? Not really, right? Well, here's some Weekly News for you to enjoy instead :P
Confirmed: 1.0.2.3 is the last patch Since no one was sure that 1.0.2.3 really was the last patch for PCM08, I felt the need to ask Cyanide abouti t. And they confirmed it. No more patches will be released for PCM08. Instead, the entire staff is sent on vacation and are currently enjoying the sun in Panama. Or, maybe not, but I'm sure that that's what they would like us to think.
Friday: Qualification time As I mentioned last week, PCM-Portugal and PCM.daily have arranged an online match in Scratch (30 laps, one sprint). Our team is picked by qualification which will be held on Friday. Most spots have already been taken, but if you're around and up you might want to join GameCenter even if you didn't sign up for a spot - one or two might become available on the day. You can read more about it in this thread. For date and time, read this, and if you're a participant, you can discuss the tactics here. Good luck!
New databases A few people have complained to me and asked why Eeyor is the only active DB maker. Well, he isn't, far from, and this was proved this week when both OlegTinkov (the guy making the A.S.O.DB) and Altehacke (the guy making the P&A DB) released their databases. The A.S.O.DB is an update of a previously released DB, fixing a number of bugs and updating the teams and rosters. P&A DB hasn't been released previously, but instead, you get three new teams (Milram Continental, Rabobank Continental and SouthAustralia). Other than that, the two databases have pretty much the same feature list, so I guess it all comes down to stats and stability ;) If you decide to go for the P&A DB, please remember to download the patch too.
Hannes releases new editor Hannes68, who's known for his many database editors, e.g. Hannes Converter for both PCM07 and PCM08, has released yet another editor. This time, it's Hannes Editor, which was also released for PCM07, which has now finally been updated to work with PCM08. It's a simple editor, like the one which comes with the game, making it possible to easily edit rider names, stats, etc. There's also a mass edit function. Unfortunately, some people have mentioned that it doesn't work at all. I don't know if that's the case, but I'll try it later today. In any case, you can go ahead and try it yourself through this link.
Management Game has reached Tour de France PCM.daily's famous Management Game has reached mid-season which also means that Tour de France, the race of the season for many teams, has started. Like in real life, Cadel Evans is pre-race favourite (if we look aside from the fact that he crashed on the 2nd stage and lost two minutes) along with Frank Schleck, 2008-winner, who won the warm-up race Tour de Suisse. You can read the preview of the race here and follow the results here.
Poll: How many riders will return positive tests during the Vuelta? Last week, we asked you how many riders you think will return positive doping tests during the Vuelta. 27 % of you think that there'll be none at all despite the fact that the Vuelta organizers have decided to use the blood passport. So, either you're very positive, thinking the sport is clean, or you're 'negative', thinking that the system doesn't work. 14 % of you think that more than 5 riders will be caught...
Next, you can help us with pointing out what we, the crew, should focus more on in the future. Currently, "more downloads" is the option with most votes, and that's a little odd when considering the fact that PCM.daily already has the largest PCM08 download section ;) Anyway, hurry up and cast your vote - thank you!
Submit your screenshots I'd just like to remind you all again that our "Submit screenshot"-function is fully working again, and we'd be very happy to receive your funny or beautiful screenshots. We've already received plenty since it started working again, and we'd love to get more. However, please remember to name your screenshot something "normal". Don't use spaces or weird characters. The page will say that the screenshot has been submitted no matter what, but in some cases, the screenshot isn't attached, and we will have to delete the submission. So, if you decide to submit a screenshot, name it something like "screenshot1" instead of e.g. "screen shot_1". Thanks.
Downloads are down While writing this, the download server has been down for a couple of hours. This is due to an upgrade of the server which have been pllanned by our host for quite some time, but has been delayed. We can't say for how long it's down, but it shouldn't take very much longer than it already has. Sorry for the inconvenience caused by this.
After having had problems with this for months, I can now finally tell you that the problem with the screenshot section has been fixed. The problem made it impossible to submit screenshots, but after some fiddling today it should once and for all be possible again. So, if you've any funny, beautiful or just some screenshots which you want to share with the rest of us, you can submit them following this link. It's also available from the User Info menu in the right top. You need to keep the file name simple, though. No weird characters, just use letters only (e.g. pcmdaily.jpg - not pcm_daily.jpg).
Although the PCM Fusion DB has been stopped, we do still have a Fusion DB-related surprise for you. Today, we decided to release a side-project, the PCM Fusion Track DB, which is basically like the other track packs which have been released: lots and lots of riders, rider photos for all riders, jerseys for all countries (also the new ones!), a new track and lots of other small improvements. You can download it right here.
Edit: Just so it is clear - this is a non-equal stats Track DB. The first of its kind.
