PCM 2012Interview by PCM Benelux

Introduction

Pro Cycling Manager is a series of cycling management and real-time simulation games created by Cyanide. The game was first launched in 2001 as Cycling Manager, but the series took on the Pro label in June 2005. A new version is released every year to coincide with the Tour de France. The game is offered in a variety of languages (French, English, German, Spanish, Italian, Dutch, Danish, Norwegian, ..) although the actual language configuration depends on the local publisher. Over the years a lot of online communities were established. The following interview is the perfect example on how Cyanide and Focus acknowledge the different communities around the world. They provide us with information, which we share with our members.

Sincerely,PCM Benelux

Interview

Hello Eyolfur. Can you introduce yourself a bit for our readers?Hello, this is Eyolfur, lead programmer at Cyanide for the Pro Cycling Manager 2012 project. I’m really happy to answer to PCM Benelux which has been among the best communities working with us during the project, particularly with the organisation of the PCM11 World Cup.

A lot of people have been asking for a management update. Are there any particular changes in this section of the game?The management part of the game becomes more and more important since we make the Tour de France game on console. The console game is for arcade, whereas the PC game is for management.

In consequence, we have been working more on the manager side of the game. One big feature is the fact that we will be able to plan the team and riders subscriptions with a brand new user friendly interface. It means you won’t need to take a separate sheet of paper to prepare your career, you’ll do it in the game. In addition, the official rules for race and team divisions are applied and there is a new page to explain how it works.

Another interesting addition is the revamp of the training stages. The stage booking is easier, the costs are balanced and some new stages have appeared, like the possibility to prepare the mountain stages on the 3 weeks tours or prepare for team time trials in circuits like Zolder. The feedbacks of the stages are more clear, to help evaluate the real impact.

In the core of the game, some adjustments have been made on what we call the ‘type leaders’. It is the part of the management that identifies the riders as ‘tour de france rider’, ‘classic specialist’, ‘sprinter’ etc.. The algorithms have been smoothed and it will be easier to edit in the database too. The calendars for AI teams and its rosters have been updated too, due to the increase of teams and races.

A new feature for PCM2011 was the implementation of future sponsors and the evolution of team sponsors during a career. Some people complained about unrealistic sponsors. Any improvement on the licenses for these future sponsors?We can’t obtain licences from non-sponsoring companies. Get the licences from the actual teams is already very difficult. We only give the advice to the communities to make sponsor packs. You can always fix an existing career with the names you want, but the hard part is producing the graphical stuff.

You already announced more teams and more races will be available. Does this include specific and realistic stages for all races? Will variant stages be included?We have 81 teams, including the 18 Protour and the 22 continental pro. You can find the 41 other continental teams at the back of this presentation. There are 232 races including 1.2 and 2.2 regional races.

We don’t have the official route for every stages, it would mean about 750 unique stages to produce. We can’t produce so many stages and we can’t even put so many files in the DVD. But obviously, the biggest races have the official routes and there should be at least one big stage pack by Cyanide, given for free download.

Still in the stages topic, there has been a big effort to help handling the variant races in career. The way to add variants in the previous version was pretty chaotic, but now it will be easier. Installing a variant will only consist in doing a copy/paste in My Documents, and it will automatically update in the careers (even those already started). This will not depend on the database at all, as long as the nomenclature is respected.

How about controls? Can we expect new orders, in race as well as for the simulation mode? Will it be possible to control one specific cyclist for a certain phase during a race (such as a sprint)?First, the simulation has not changed. On the other hand the 3D race have some major changes. First of all, the 3d HUD has been revamped from scratch. It will change the race experience, with more user friendly controls. In PCM2012, you can easily ask a rider to go in the position you want in the peloton, you don’t need to manually control it anymore. You can ask to be informed of the time difference between two riders, for example to keep an eye on the 2nd rider in the overall ranking in a stage race. The protection mode is more clear and the sprint trains are easier to do (you can do it manually or by selecting various riders and click on ‘follow’) .

However, we don’t give control to one specific cyclist, because this is a manager game. We don’t want to give too much micro management for the player, because the philosophy of the game is managing a team. The Tour de France console game, on the contrary, focuses on the rider rather than the team. Indeed we don’t control a single rider on PCM as a design choice.

Cyanide sent an open invite to the community for some help on the official database. Did you get the response you were hoping for? Is it worth repeating or expanding this cooperation next year? What is your opinion on working more closely with the communities?The response was quite good, speaking of quantity and quality. This is a valuable help because it improves the original database, which is a never ending discussion topic. By the way, this was not a desperate SOS from Cyanide, but taking advantage of the very accurate knowledge of our fans on some specific domains is very helpful for us and besides, the fans are happy to help too.

In general, we (and especially me) are very interested in working with the communities. PCM has a huge base of fans and we are always delighted to see the implication of communities in the game. I was a fan of the game before joining Cyanide, and it is the case of many other members at Cyanide. For the future, we want to keep working with the communities and there is room for improvements.

Which improvement took the most time and effort and will be most revolutionary?Certainly the new multiplayer mode, Armada. It is a new mode allowing you to collect player and equipment cards to build a dream team. With the best cards, you’ll have the more chances to win the Armada races which completely replace the old ladder. As it is a new mode it took time to make it but it was worth it.

The new race interface took many time too, because behind the game, there is a major change in the 2D engine. Now the game will adapt better to the high resolutions and the 16/9 or 16/10 formats.

Which options are left out due to a lack of time and might be implemented in 2013?At the beginning of the project, we always design a lot of things that may not be in the game eventually. It is part of the process. However, the main features are quickly decided and we didn’t remove a big one. Obviously we have still thousand ideas to improve the game, but we don’t know yet what we will do in 2013. I think the biggest part we had to delay, was increasing the importance and the number of staff members in the game, together with a new way of managing injuries and recuperation.

At last, care to share some final thoughts or some hot news?I hope the new features will be appreciated by the players, we always do the best we can to satisfy every PCM fan. Many improvements have been done in career, the 3d-race engine, the interface, the AI, the multiplayer, so I think everybody will like PCM2012. It will be easier to edit the game data too with the apparition of data driven stages, more calendars, open variants and the possibility to prevent a rider from racing without taking him out the DB (e.g Contador is in the game but he can’t run until august in career mode).

Many people are always asking, so let’s make it clear : The game will be released a few weeks before the Tour de France, so you can expect it in a month and it will be released on PC only, with versions available on Steam (non exclusively though). No Mac, Linux, Iphone or Ipad versions.

I think we are going to make an « open bar » this year. It is a session of quick questions an-swered by the Cyanide team a few days before the release of the game. Any fan of PCM can ask any questions and I think we will organise that with the main communities around PCM.

Enclosure

Bigmat - Auber 93Miche - GuerciottiCarmim - Prio - Tavira Team VorarlbergAmore & VitaCCC PolkowiceDrapac Professional CyclingAdria MobilTeam Eddy Merckx IndelandNUTRIXXION - AbusThüringer Energie TeamWhirlpool - AuthorRoubaix Lille MétropoleOrbea ContinentalAn Post - Sean KellyGlud & Marstrand - LRØEndura RacingWallonie-Bruxelles-Crédit AgricoleLa Pomme-Marseille Team Differdange - Magic-sportfood.deIdemasport-Biowanze

Burgos BH - Castilla y LeonCyclingTeam De RijkeCyclingteam Jo PielsMTN-QhubekaChristina Watches - OnfoneVéranda Rideau UColba - Superano HamAC Sparta PrahaAtlas Personnal - JakrooEfapel - GlassdriveJoker MeridaLA - AntarteLKT-Team-Brandenburg ONDA-BoavistaPlussbank BMCRapha Condor - SharpTeam NippoTeam NSP-GHOSTTirol Cycling TeamTeam Concordia Forsikring - Himmerland

41 continental teams

Feel free to share this interviewContact: procyclingmanagerbenelux@gmail.com