There'll be a news announcement on the site too, but for you lot here's a more in-depth rundown of what's new and changed for 2015.
The back end of the game (which very few of you ever see of course) has been completely overhauled, and the game engine has had some fairly fundamental changes too. The most fundamental is that a tour is now a separate thing from a competition, so one tour can have more than one competition running at the same time. Tour Down under has three: standard, purist and an Aussies only one (we'll be doing those for the grand tours and the Tour of Britain too. Not Aussies, mind). Before it was a user that had multiple teams, and it was a bit of a hack to be honest. This is a much more elegant and versatile way of doing things.
It gives us a load more flexibility to offer different competitions, and we can now select in the back end what leagues different competitions count towards. so just-for-fun comps like the Tour de San Luis purist and the Aussies-only comp won't count towards your overall season score. That also means that down the line we should be able to offer some user-run competitions alongside the ones we're doing in-house.
So each user only has one team now. Premium is different, then, in that it simply allows you to enter as many competitions as you like. If you're a standard player, you can only enter eight in a season. Realistically that means standard users will be entering the competitions they were allowed to last year, so it shouldn't work out that different.
Also pretty fundamental is the change to the way transfers are handled. This season you'll get a set number of transfers for a standard race, and you can use them in whatever way you see fit. We tried this out with the Skoda game last year and found it a much more interesting way to play because there's more strategies available, and it opens the possibility of bigger changes at the end of a competition if different users have employed different transfer strategies, or just run out...
We now have the ability to select the team size for any competition too, as well as the budget. Generally, races will be teams of eight, with nine riders for the Grand Tours and fewer for things like the country-specific fun competitions; we've gone with five for the Aussies only one.
The roster changes thread has been replaced by an email system that will automatically send you updates of any changes affecting your team - check the checkbox in your account page if you want them. There's also the option to automatically receive stage updates, and the game will email you each time a new competition is opened if you have general updates enabled.
The overall leagues have changed. There's a standard season league for all standard comps, and a purist season league for the purist comps. As well as that there's a road.cc monuments competition which is just the big stuff: Spring Classics and the Grand Tours, presently. We may add a couple more to it but it won't be more than eight competitions so you'll be able to play it as a standard user. There aren't any specific non-premium leagues as there aren't any specific non-premium competitions any more.
Rider stats we've simplified a bit to make it easier to understand for new users, and we've also added stats to the transfers page so you can get an overall idea of the strengths and weaknesses of your team.
There will be plenty of prizes on offer this year, but we haven't teamed up with anyone to offer prizes for every stage. We're still working through some missing ones from last year, and it's better if we handle the prizes in house. There will be prizes for the Tour Down Under, news on that soon.
There's a bunch of stuff on the to-do list and there's some things that will no doubt need fixing. If you have any issues with the site functionality, comment on here and we'll have a look at them.
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210 comments
Will the riders missing from the list for the WC Road Race be added or is to stay as it is with those dozen or more unavailable to be selected?
Thanks.
Hi,
Not sure this is the correct place to post this as it's not so much an issue with the game but rather with the site:
Late last year I noticed I could no longer login to the site, both the Fantasy section and the main site. I got the message "Login failed. Have you forgotten your road.cc password?" (or something like that)
I sent a message to Dave on twitter asking if he could help and he said he would look into it. A little while later I noticed that while I still could not login to the Fantasy section, I could login to the main site and then re-enter the fantasy URL and I would still be logged in.
I am glad I can enter the fantasy site this way but if there is a way to fix it I would appreciate it. Sometimes I remember that I still have transfers to do while I am away from my computer, so I do them on my phone quickly and then it's quite a hassle to first go to the main site, login, type the fantasy URL again (I don't think there's a button or link to the fantasy section) and then do my transfers.
Regards,
Florry
Form seems to be a bit wonked up at the moment. Ignatas Konovalovas consistently pops up very high up the rows when you sort riders by current form, but when I click on his profile I see a form of... 0. By comparison Matt Brammeier has a current form of 2, according to the nice chart graphic, but sits beneath Konovalovas in the listing.
Tirreno-Adriatico, stage 7, won by Fabian Cancellara, so why did he not get any points in the game today? Please credit me the points.
Exactly the same as the above poster.
How did the stage winner get 0 points?
How do we get this rectifyed?
Scoring for stage 7 of Tirreno Adriatico mistaken and should be rerun to scre Cancellara and lower other scores in top 20 that are too high.
game keeps on saying its currently updating for the last 12+ hours?
Is there an issue?
I need to submit my spring classics team in yet!
Hello, could someone please sort the Spring Classics game out I am off for the weekend and may not have internet access after this morning?
No points for terpstra today finishing 10th???
Points for 10th place (11 points) have been mistakenly given to Trentin and should be given to Terpstra. Scores need to be adjusted.
yeah, we'll re-update
So I had a decent Ronde scored 159 with a podium. I went up over 90 places in the spring classics season competition but dropped two places in the overall standings. There's a piece of mathematics I'm missing , what is it?
I joined premium this year so I could enter as many of the Fantasy games as I want. I just play for fun as it keeps me interested in the Pro Cyle racing scene and before I did not realise how many different races there are around the world. It is great fun and I thank the team behind the website for giving me the opportunity to do this just for fun.
I placed the top 4 in the latest stage Amgen Tour of California but did not receive the Podium badge and I have noticed that in other competitions there are other badges I have earned but not received is there something wrong with my account or am I not reading the rules properly?
Is it just for me that the custom user leagues are not updating? Its still at pre-giro scores. Normal overall league is fine.
Hi, I have posted twice outside this thread re missing scoring on Stage 12 of the Tour de France 2016.
Those of us with Shane Archbold should have received 10 points for the last man as well as the last man badge.
Could scoring be readjusted accordingly, please?
Thanks!
pclark007
Having exactly the same problem myself. League is not updating
Just noticed the road.cc Monuments League hasn't been capturing my Spring Classics scores. Can it be rectified please? Cheers.
Dear powers that be - I don't think the game clock has been adjusted for daylight savings time. Amstel Gold had an 8am deadline yet it's still giving me 8 minutes to make changes
At the moment Fleche Wallonne is showing as Thursday but the race is on Wednesday. Does this mean I can pick my team after the race is finished?
Wrong riders listed in Fleche Wallone. Richie Porte is listed and yet he is not riding, only realised he was not riding after I had picked him and the deadline had passed for transfers!!
One issue I see is that there are no Torku Şekerspor riders listed - specifically for the Tour of Turkey.
Something funky happened with my Giro del Trentino transfers and I had two Ritchie Portes for stage 4
Dave, Are there not usually the same number of transfers as stages?
Romandie has 6 stages, but there are only 10 transfers?
Correct, we have been having n stages x 2, so effectively 2 extra transfers. Hadnt even noticed the change, but did feel a bit light considering i went 3 stages with just 1 change.
In my opinion i think those extra transfers are needed as id like to make more than 2 changes for tomorrow but as we no longer have penalties an extra transfer or two offsets that a little
Trying to pick at team for the Giro
It does not seem to be working right. Managed to pick to riders with very very slow response. It then does not respond
Is something wrong.
Just spent half an hour trying to get a purist team in, now it's crashed. Come on chaps, feed the hamsters...?
It seems to be the rider list that's causing the slow loading, if it helps.
Can't create my Italian teams, none of them. Either 'No Service Available' or can get in but then not pick any riders! Been trying since yesterday.
Any cahnce anyone could let us know what's happening please?
I'm going for a ride. Gonna risk it leaving about half an hour to pick my teams. Otherwise CBA. It's a Saturday so I'd be surprised if the servers get fixed quick enough.
Get it sorted please!
I can't complete my Giro teams either - ridiculously slow then just crashes.
Sort it out please
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