Has searched the forum but not found anything besides this old post:
Links are prohibited, but the address is: h t t p s : // forums . zwift . com / t / add-non-riders-to-watopia/7408
But Watopia to me feels very eerie in the regard that there is no activity, none, except for cyclists, balloonists, and animals. Not a single person in any of the villages or towns (downtown, Italian, German, fishing, western town, neon town, alpe village).
Compare this to the newer worlds such as France, Innsbruck and the others.
I would like to see som activity at least in the villages. Some people sitting at the cafe/resaturants, som walking by the pavement.
Watopia being the largest and most spread out world, but to me feels like a ghost town (that for some reason cyclist enjoy pedaling around in… strange!) is sad. Surely some of the NPCs from the newer worlds could be copied to add just that little extra ‘Life’ into Watopia?
Kind regards
I’m ambivalent overall, but I do recall there being additional crowds along the Epic KoM during this year’s pseudo TdF event, so it does seem possible.
IMO the place where the emptiness is acutely noticeable is the Alpe. It’d elevate the experience to a whole 'nother level having even a small handful of spectators cheering along that route.
At slower the speed, perhaps more apparent? But I would argue every village/place that would be ‘inhibited’, could use at least some pedestrians or by-standers to help counter the ‘ghost town’-iness that Watopia is now imo.
For my 2 cents, by-standers do not need to be cheering crowds - not every place or day is a race day - but rather civilian NPC. E.g both Italian and German village has tables and cafes/restaurants, but no one in sigth.
Unless it is somehow related to the world size, it should be doable since other Zwift worlds has bystanders, spectators, and such.
To me it just seems such a simple thing to add to the world’s ‘immersion’.
Unfortunately NPCs (and their shadows) have a disproportionately high impact on the frame rate.
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Unfortunately NPCs (and their shadows) have a disproportionately high impact on the frame rate.
Is that more so in Watopia (being largest world → more riders)? Or do you mean that NPC / by-standers should be removed from the other worlds which has them? (i.e. all other worlds?)
Certainly don’t think anything should be removed, but I meant in the game generally. More stuff, more impact. Trees, people, everything. That’s why New York performs so much worse than say London, because of all the foliage. Of course none of this is felt on low end devices like Apple TV, so I’m not sure they care.
Ok, then I am following you. Yeah, I have also read that the game engine itself has its limitations.