Only a quick update this week, since I need to get back to studying!
#5 Story of the Month awards winners
The awards return after the December hiatus, with two new winners decided. The new voting system doesn't seem to have affected the results negatively at all - only two points did in fact separate the first two in the main award!
Close call for Ian Butler, who just about defeats Nordic Cycling - while Shonak and Euskaltel finish 19 points ahead of Project 2100.
2013 ManGame season coming to an end
After a long season that started a little over a year ago, the curtain is closing on the 7th season of the Management Game. However, a couple of races still remain - and many teams still have a lot to play for. dave92's Wikipedia team have all but secured the ProTour crown, but Team B&O, Puma-SAP and Heineken are only separated by a few points in the struggle for another year in the highest division.
Meanwhile, neither promotion nor relegation has been decided in the lower leagues - with some exceptions. Stick around for the exciting finale, even if you're not in the game - since applications for 2014 aren't far away now!
Better late than never - 2014 fantasy betting has started
During the last few weeks, many of you have been asking and wondering when the fantasy betting system would be reset and made ready for 2014. It was unfortunately not possible to have it done before the Tour Down Under, but at long last the new season is set to begin with tomorrow's Grand Prix de la Marseillaise.
Use your PCM$ wisely, and you might find yourself with a headstart towards becoming PCM.daily's 2014 betting champion!
Don't miss the action from the cyclo-cross worlds
In case you weren't aware, the cyclo-cross world championships in Hoogerheide and the Netherlands are taking place during this weekend. There will be two races today and two tomorrow, with the elite men's race wrapping up the event tomorrow afternoon. All the information you need - including live stream links from the UCI's YouTube channel - can be found in this excellent preview from ShortsNL.
Make sure to be quick if you don't want to miss any of the races, since the junior men's race starts less than two hours from now!
No redemption needed - PCM.Daily Survivor Completed
The 2nd season of PCM.Daily Survivor ended the same way as the 1st. Jesleyh outwitted, outplayed, and outlasted his 19 rivals to be crown the Sole Survivor once again. Fighting his way through each immunity challenge and surviving tribal councils as the defending champion helped seal his victory over the other two finalist, Dippofix and knockout.
The "Fan Favourite" award, voted on by the community after the game was over, goes to jseadog1. He was a strong competitor throughout and perhaps was one immunity away from taking away Jesleyh's title. So, a nice consolation prize for his efforts.
Thanks again for a great season, and I hope this competition can spark more interest from the community in these types of forum games in the future.
Voting open for January Story of the Month Awards
It's that time of the month again. The monthly story awards are back after stepping aside for the yearly PCM.Daily Awards in December. The concept remains the same as the community decides which was the best story and new story of the month. However, the way we decide who wins has changed. Check out the nominations and the new voting system before the results are announced a week from now!
Big news for the site this week, but an easy edition for me, since the first two items are from CrueTrue, and the last one from SN. I'll let you get right to reading!
Stage Database back from the dead
It's been a a little more than a year since PCM.daily moved to a new home. Unfortunately, it didn't quite allow us to bring the Stage Database with us, making it impossible to add new files to it ever since.
But we're happy to announce that it has now returned to the PCM.daily family. AaB-ern has worked hard the past couple of days in order to restore the full functionality of the Stage Database, and everything now seems to be back in order.
Other than making it easy to find new stages and races for your game, the Stage Database also serves the purpose of keeping the work relevant for future games. Stage makers are required to upload the editor-compatible zcts-files of their stages, and it's therefore possible to convert PCM13 files to PCM14 once it's released even if the stage maker is no longer around.
And speaking of the Stage Database, why not advertise a little for the first addition to it since the relaunch?
The Italian stage maker emmea recently released another Tour de France variant, and by emmea's own words it's his best work yet thanks to the route planning and the graphical details (see some examples here).
Two time trials and one team time trial are among the 21 stages which also pay a visit to famous climbs such as Alpe d'Huez, Plateau de Beille and Col du Galibier.
How to get it? All the stages, including the editor files, are available from the Stage Database. You can use the 'shopping list' feature in order to download all the stages at once.
2013 World Championships - Take 2
The Management Game turned it's attentions to Stuttgart over the past week, which played host to the 2013 seasons World Championships. Roturn, CountArach and Smowz handled the reports as Netherlands won the TTT, Kiril Yatsevich took the U23 Time Trial, Taylor Phinney regained his Elite Time Trial title, and Wilco Kelderman won the U23 Road Race.
That just left the main event - the Elite Road Race. ManGame legend Damiano Cunego had the whole Italian team at his disposal, but would that be enough to take the crown against a very strong field? Find out by clicking!
For those of you who'd like to try out your PCM tactics against other PCM.daily members: good news! Thanks to a new collaboration project launched last week, you will be able to do that, on a weekly basis. The initiative slipped past my eyes when putting together the last edition of the news, but I hope this push will make the creators forgive me for the miss! ;-)
Every Saturday night at 8 PM (GMT), an online room called 'PCM.daily Online League' will be open on Armada. Anyone who feels like can join and compete for the points that will be given to the most successful players. Those will then be put together in a ranking, to decide who is the best PCM player on the site. What are you waiting for? Go check out all the details and prepare for lots of fun!
'Cycling Manager Evolved' poised to give Cyanide some competition
After previously working with both stagemaking and creation of PCM databases, Danish member T-Photon recently announced his latest endeavour - which is possibly also the biggest project ever on the site: a brand new cycling game!
Using his knowledge in the field of software technology in combination with ideas and wishes from other members, he intends to build everything from scratch - with many of the things that we would like Cyanide to fix or add to PCM included. Imagine a cycling game with not only 3D graphics, but also a realistic gameplay and a detailed career mode! Show your support and leave good ideas and potential features in this thread, and it might become reality within just a few years!
Plenty of 'new' DBs now available from the downloads section
Leon40 takes realism in stages to a whole new level
One of many struggles when it comes to creating stages is getting cities, climbs and other locations in game to resemble the way they look in real life. Generic cities just wont give you the distinct look that certain places have. However, Leon40 (toto40) seems to have found a way to successfully adapt real places into PCM, in stunning style!
After spending what I can only assume was an insane amount of time spent on every stage, the French member has started putting together a Vuelta a España variant to add to an already finished variant of the Tour de France - among other things. His thread takes a bit of time to load, due to a large amount of pictures, but believe me - it's worth the wait once you get to see the landscapes they show!
Ladies (if any...) and gentlemen... with the winner of Ballon d'Or having been announced, it's now time to proceed to the real awards, the one that y'all actually care about: the PCM.daily Awards 2013!
With 28 awards being handed out, it's the biggest 'show' yet. More chances of winning, more chances of taking more than one trophy home. Or, for the glass hallf empty-people, more chances of being utterly disappointed.
And now, it's time to reveal who''s going home empty-handed and, more importantly, who's going home with a smile on their faces. Click 'Read More' to find the answers.
