Pro Cycling Manager 2012 - For sykkelfans

[Patrick123]

Nå er det bare 2-3 uker igjen (forhåpentligvis) til årets snakkis slippes, nemlig Pro Cycling Manager 2012. Spillet blir sluppet på PC samtidig som "Tour de France" blir sluppet på PlayStation 3 og Xbox 360.

 

Det er blitt lovt flere store og små forbedringer fra fjorårets versjon og her er noen av de mer sentrale.

 

Karrieremodus:

- 80 forskjellige lag (20 mer enn i fjor)

- En 3. divisjon er blitt lagt til for å gjøre det mer realistisk. Lagene er nå delt etter World-, ProContinental- og Continental Touren.

- Enkelte av rittene som er med vil kun være tilgjengelig for lag i en spesiell divisjon.

- En innebygd "Sesongplanlegger" som skal gjøre det enklere å planlegge hvem som deltar i hvilke ritt og når.

- De vil også være mulig å dra på "rekognosering" før et etapperitt, altså trene på de avgjørende delene av en etappe før selve rittet starter.

 

"In-game"

- GUI-en har blitt endret litt på fra tidligere år.

- Det vil være en dypere atmosfære under etappene. Det vil nå være flere ting som avgjør hvorvidt du bør samarbeide under et brudd eller ikke, om du bør spille aggressivt og angripe, etc.

- De computerstyrte rytterne vil bli bedre til å avgjøre om de skal slippe seg ned og spare seg til en ny dag eller om de skal satse alt på en etappe. Du kan se sammenlagt favoritter heller satse på enkeltetapper dersom de er håpløst langt bak i sammendraget (Kreuziger i årets Giro, for eksempel).

 

Grafikk:

- Det blir ingen store endringer innenfor grafikken siden det har vært et av hovedfokusene de senere årene.

- Det er derimot lagt til flere "småting" på etappene som for eksempel i hus i enten britisk eller tysk stil, kirker, osv.

- For de som kan kjøre PCM12 på de høyeste grafiske settingene vil kunne merke en del endringer på blant annet syklistmodellene.

 

 

I spoiler et intervju som ble gjort med de ansvarlige for PCM 12.

 

 

It's been mostly about graphics the past few editions. What's the focus of PCM12?

PCM10 was clearly about graphics due to the new engine & stage editor which have been a big change in the PCM series. The focus on PCM11 was more about the new gameplay with collisions and AI. On PCM12, there is no particular focus, the new features will be balanced between graphics, career and 3d Races.

What are the main changes in career mode? What improvements did you make? Did you add any new features to career mode?

First we decided to add the 3rd division with a true separation and more teams (80 vs +/- 60 in 2011). More teams means more races, so we have added the .2 races in the calendar (not a full .2 calendar but enough to be coherent with the number of teams).

With this DB update we had to set rules of participation based on what exist in the real cycling : limitations of invitations for certain teams, depending of their country and their division VS the race’s category.

We also added rules to set the number of invitations for races and reworked all the AI calendar process to make it more realistic.

Talking about the career features, our main change is about the planification. We were aware that you lacked tools and GUI when playing career (many of the hardcore were either working with paper, excel or PCM Season Planner external app), so we added a season calendar & cyclist planner with dedicated ingame user interface.

There will be more training camps with possibility to plan some race route reconnaissance for the major tours, or making specific TTT training camps to improve team building before a such race.

We have some other career features but it’s still WIP so it’s better to wait for a full implementation before talking about it.

What did you focus on AI-wise in PCM12? Is there any non-AI related changes to the gameplay / 3D mode in general?

Yes there are a new GUI for the 3D mode with a new layout and improved ergonomics.

Regarding the AI, the first and major improvement is the better management of tactics by riders : we added a lots of reasons to collaborate/not to collaborate during breakaways, to launch a new attack or to focus on a defensive tactic depending on the teammates' situation.

A concrete example: before, the leaders were always collaborating after an attack on the last climb. This is not always the case now and if a leader feels weak VS another leader he could decide to let the other(s) doing the relays, saving his energy to hang on as long as he can, or for an attack if he feels better after that.

We also focused on the famous "écrémage" (dropping the riders in mountain/hills). This should look strange but we first tightened the difference between good and bad climbers, so it should be less powerfull in theory, but we also worked on a specific AI to make the riders save their energy when this is appropriate.

IRL, a lots of riders could hang more in the mountains than they do, however this is the first thing you learn when you're a non-climber neo-pro: do not waste your energy to make a top-40, save it for later when your sprinter or your leader will need you!

This last changes will be directly linked to a new recovery system.

We’re also considering other modifications in the gameplay (from suggestions we collected in the forums) but as it’s still WIP it’s better communicating later about that.

Track mode has been left unchanged for a while. Did you change anything this year?

No modifications are planned for the track mode.

Graphics wise, what have you been up to since the release of PCM11? More animations, more detailed scenery?

More Isolated Buildings, more objects to create more variety : we added Britain houses, some German/Alsace houses, new churches, castles, manors, crosses, more modern Ski resort buildings to make more realistic villages in mountains.

We are also considering another set of houses for Andalucia races, but that’s WIP.

We also made several minor tech. improvements which make the landscape and all the scene more credible (sky, shaders…)

About the cyclist, we should have a major upgrade for average and high configuration but it’still WIP and a bit early to talk about it.

Speaking of stages: What are the main additions to the stage editor this year?

We added the fences: you can design barriers (around houses, or around fields, or even making a medieval look) that you add like a single road.

An auto-save function has been added (with incremental feature).

For the “hardcore”, there will be the possibility to edit the altitude in the profile, you’ll be able to edit/delete some road boarders. More brushes have been added for those who “sculpt” the landscape.

Last year you increased the amount of unique landscapes in the stage editor with Arid and Dessert. Will you be adding more this year? Like for Asian races? And how about areas (dem files)?

No it’s not in the plan to add more unique landscapes this year but there will be new different houses as said before.

DEM files will stay the same, you can cover all you need and if you miss some parts, you know you can still ask (for a question of limited space we let only the main areas on the DVD)

Will we be seeing any changes to online gaming?

Yes but that’s still WIP and we can’t talk now about that.

In terms of hardware requirements: I know it's early, but do you have any idea at this point whether PCM12 will require more or less than PCM11?

This is too early for an official confirmation so all I stay after is not guaranteed. I can already say our goal is to keep the same HW requirements as PCM2011.

We were also aware that a lot of hardcore gamers were not happy with the 1.8 Go limit! The problem was rare since we made some optimizations on PCM2011 but it could happen for high/very high configurations with all options at max. So we worked on the memory management and saved between 300 and 400 Mo saved on the big stages. This affect especially the high/very high configurations, the gains are less important if you play with average or low.

We used a little part of this save for new 3D features so at the end the gain will not be so big, and please note that it is a maximum for the real big stages (Roubaix, Liège, TDF-Giro big mountain stages) with options at max.

What's the expected release date?

With no surprises this is still the same : Mid-June 2012 but the exact date will be revealed later!

Can you say anything regarding other versions of PCM? Platforms, features?

We know that some PCM daily readers will ask in your article’s commentary so no Mac version is planned right now, and we’re still waiting for more lobbying from the community for a Cyclocross version (c’mon Sven!)

We have Tour de France 2012 for X360/PS3 that should be release around mid-June. I think that the project deserve to be known because it’s going to be an amazing simulation game where you really feel riding Le Tour in the peloton. This is so different from the 2011 version, we made huge efforts on race AI/gameplay/atmosphere and players who love cycling should love it.

We’re sure that players who were not convinced by the first version could change their opinion. Of course, it’ll not suit for players who want to play a manager game, but there is an impressive realism on the AI/scenarios. In other words if you want to play a realistic race with a high action and you don’t have hundred hours free to invest in a cycling manager game, TDF is for you!

 

 

Endret 4. juni 2012 av Patrick123

[The Redmen]

Gleder meg veldig til dette spillet. PCM er vell aldri et spill jeg spiller så fryktelig mye. Men det er så sinnsykt morro når en først spiller det! Spesielt med inspirasjon fra TdF på tv'n

[Patrick123]

Tror faktisk at dette blir første gangen siden 08 at jeg ikke kjøper det, i hvertfall ikke med en gang. Har en god karriere gående på PCM11 og det har ikke kommet gode nok forbedringer til å interessere jeg. Jeg vil aller helst se en ny og forbedret karrieredel.

[The Redmen]

Forbedret karriere del er det jeg ville hatt bedre også..

[Grillkongen Craig]

Skal det virkelig komme på PS3 og X360? Ser ikke helt for meg hvordan de skal få det til å funke bra. Hvis det blir noe ala det forferdelige Tour de France spillet de lagde til konsoll i fjor er det bare å styre unna. PC-utgavene derimot pleier å være bra. Noen som vet om det kommer på Steam?

[Patrick123]

Nei, tviler på at det kommer på Steam. Om jeg kjøper det så vil jeg nok gjøre det gjennom PCMDaily.com.

 

Jeg prøvde ikke konsollutgaven og kommer ikke til å gjøre det i år heller. Det er nok gjort enkelte forbedringer der, men det er mer eller mindre et helt annet spill enn PC-utgaven.

[The Redmen]

Konsoll spillet trenger mange forbedringer for å bli et godt spill. Ble dessverre lite spilt fra min side. Også frustrerende hvor lang tid en etappe kan ta. Selvsagt er det ok lengde med tanke på at den kun er 21 etapper, men blir veldig for lei..

[Grillkongen Craig]

Konsollutgaven er vel strengt tatt ikke et Pro Cycling Manager spill heller. Det heter Tour de France 2012, og kommer nok til å bli et helt annet spill enn Pro Cycling Manager 2012 på PC. Kanskje lurt å oppdatere førstepost da det blir litt misvisende når det står at PCM 2012 kommer til PS3 og X360 også.

[Patrick123]

Du har et poeng der.

 

Done and... done.

[Grillkongen Craig]

Noen som har prøvd årets versjon?

[The Redmen]

Jepp. Synes det faktisk har utviklet seg mere enn 10 -> 11 versjonen. Det er ikke stoooore endringer, men jeg er godt fornøyd med årets versjon så langt

[The Redmen]

Her var det lite fart...

Noen som spiller?

Har selv spilt svært lite. Er i vueltan på min første save, med Radioshack. Tabbe å være Radioshack på dette spillet, umulig å vinne tdf med Andy når det er 3 tempo etapper....

[Patrick123]

Selv har jeg latt være å skaffe meg årets versjon, jeg holder meg heller til PCM2011 siden jeg har en meget god karriere gående.

[The Redmen]

Om du gidder kan du skrive litt om saven?

Litt off topic men, uansett

[Patrick123]

Simulerer meg oppover i spillet bare for å se hva som skjer. Er midtveis i 2033 nå