Which ones don’t have night or rain? I would love to be able to ride in “sunshine” for my entire ride… The scenery changing is all I need to ensure it doesn’t feel “static”…
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france 8char
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Why do you believe that? Not being a jerk, just curious. There are thousands and thousands of people on a given day using Zwift–how do either of us know what the majority would want? Would a lot of people like it always sunny? Sure. And a lot would like it as it is now. But I have no idea how either of us can talk about what the majority wants without doing some serious polling and data collection.
I also don’t think that creating an entirely separate world is anything Zwift would think is easy or would at all want to do. Just think of everything they’d have to do:
-races: which world to hold them in?
-fondos and tours, same question. Would they create each event in both worlds, doubling their workload?
-storage space and server demand
-Literally double the maintenance and upkeep every time they have to change or fix anything in the world.
Not to mention that they have reasons for limiting the worlds easily accessed in the first place–likely a population density reason (consumers perceive a place as better quality if there are more customers there). So you want them to possibly cut the density of riders in half in their main world?
You keep saying that it would be ‘such a simple feature’ to implement–I don’t think it would be simple at all. And it would very potentially lead to more work for the staff, and less enjoyment overall for users.
What if there were certain times of the day when it would be guaranteed to be day/sunny in game so if you really didn’t want to ride when it was night you could?
I’m not too bothered by it but i’d also guess given the choice between sunny nice weather over dark rainy weather they’d pick the former - but i’d also guess most people don’t mind either way. I have no data on this but i haven’t ever heard anyone calling for more bad weather but people have asked for more good weather or less bad weather.
I believe 51% of users could be considered a majority.
I honestly don’t see why you’re so ademently opposed to the idea as any effect it would have on you would likely be imperceptible.
- Keep the races in the main world.
- Keep the fondos and tours where they’re at too.
- It wouldn’t take much work at all to just copy Watopia and have it sunny in that version all the time.
- Storage space and server demand is a non-issue. We’re not doubling the user count… haha, although it might eventually lead to twice as many users if they gave us the always sunny option
- It wouldn’t double the maintenance. They could use the exact same code for both worlds, the only difference being a setting that makes one of them always Sunny.
What I and many others are asking for is not complicated and it won’t have a negative impact on anyone like yourself.
And you have data that shows that 51% of people agree with you? I’m not saying you don’t, maybe there’s been a poll. I’ve just never seen it.
What I’m opposed to are the following:
- changing the main world to be always sunny
- the programmers diverting their already stretched-thin attention to this issue, which would be needed to create a second world.
It would double the maintenance. Copying and pasting code might work (might) to create the sunny copy. But then every time a change has to be programmed into Watopia, it would also have to be programmed into Sunny Watopia. Two tasks. That might not sound like much, but it is. Pacer Bots? Need more of those too, so more maintenance. And the size of Watopia pacer groups shrinks, affecting the experience of those groups for everyone.
You also, as I mentioned, would be reducing the density of users in the main game world. That’s significant. Again, it’s part of marketing–if people show up to a restaurant or store and there are fewer people there, they won’t enjoy the experience as much. Crowded places (to a certain extent of course) tell people that the service or place is good, and their enjoyment goes up. That’s one of the main problems people have with Rouvy, you hear it all the time–“nice place, but it’s dead”.
So yeah, I’m opposed to the idea of changing the main world because I’m skeptical that a majority of users agree with you, and I’m opposed to the creation of a second world because I see it significantly and negatively affecting my experience of Zwift, as everyone else’s as well.
If their code allowed for an ‘always sunny’ button to be implemented easily user-by-user, sure. I don’t really care what’s on your screen. I just disagree with you when you think your idea would not have a negative effect on Zwift and the other users. I think it would.
Exactly! I’m not asking to have take away anything from anyone who likes rainy, cloudy or gray hazy weather… I know people are like “well it changes every 15min”… I live in Ohio and the weather here changes every 15min, which is what I want to escape!
Besides, most of my rides are before work so like 4am-6am… I would really love to start my day with a beautiful sunny ride!!!
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Given the amount of times this has been brought up over the past 10 years, I can assure you, there’s a HUGE number of people who want “Always Sunny” as an option. Unfortunately, every time it gets brought up there’s at least one very vocal user who somehow thinks us getting what we want will take something away from them.
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I say “fine, keep the main world as it is.”
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You don’t have to “create a new world” just copy Watopia.
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I’m in software development and I assure you, it doesn’t double maintenance. Not even close. It’s not complicated or labor intensive, once setup, it wouldn’t take any extra work when deploying updates.
Fine, keep the pacer bots in the main version.
I don’t think the user density is an issue here… I think zwift has lost and will continue to lose users because we want a beautiful, sunny place to ride. If anything, this feature will keep more users on the platform.
“Fickle” I’m not sure that word means what you think it means.
Last I checked, the reason we use indoor trainers is to avoid the weather conditions in real life rides. 
This has 4 votes.
I can assure you, if, and that’s a big IF, Zwift is contemplating it, it is way, way, way down on the list of things to do.
I definitely appreciate your try at finding a compromise by suggesting nice weather during certain times of the day. But I do think that would impact riders who like the rainy weather. My suggestion to give us an always sunny option either individually or in our own copy of Watopia wouldn’t really effect the other users who like inclement weather.
‘Huge’ =/= ‘majority’.
There is simply no way you can know, from the number of people who post on the Zwift forums, what the majority of Zwift users want to see. What percentage of total users have ever come to the forums? I’m willing to bet that neither you nor I even know that bit of data. So you don’t know how many Zwifters come to the forums as a percentage of total Zwifters, and I’m also guessing you don’t know what percentage of forum-users have voted for your option in the past. Even if you have the total number of Zwift users, you have absolutely no idea what percentage of them want this. ‘A big number’ does not mean the same thing as ‘the majority’.
If you know how their software is working under the hood, you know more than probably most people here. It seems like there are a lot of changes brought up here every day that ‘would be so easy for Zwift to do’. They can’t even make bikes red without breaking other functionality. But an entirely separate Watopia of only sunshine would be easy. And you know this because you’re a programmer. And all programming is pretty much the same? If things like this are so easy, why does something seemingly even easier like removing a button from the companion app take years to happen?
I’m not sure why my voicing my opinion is somehow thwarting your desires. It’s not like Zwift listens to me any more than anyone else. If I’m saying a lot about this, it’s because you keep engaging with me. I posted my opinion, and was happy to leave it at that. But I also respond to conversations, so here we are–having a conversation. I’m not trying to rain on your parade (no pun intended…okay, a little bit of a pun intended). I’m just trying to explain my view to you.
I don’t know why you don’t think user density is an issue. I think it’s an issue because they limit the readily available worlds to three. There is little reason to do this other than making sure that those worlds have a suitable density of riders. Again, this is a commonly known psychological factor in marketing. Empty spaces lead to customers reporting lower satisfaction. Doesn’t make much sense all the time, but that’s humans for you. If density wasn’t an issue, why do they limit the world choices? Server load? It would be the same number of users, as you point out. So why else? Just to **** with us?
How many users have left Zwift because of this issue? Not to sound like a broken record, but do you have a number? With data? I could just as easily say “I think Zwift would lose a lot of users if they made Watopia always sunny.” Does that statement carry any weight? Not without data.
You’re acting like there’s no good reason for them to not do what you want, that it’s so simple, but they’re ignoring you anyway…because why? If it would be so easy to do, what is the reason they aren’t doing it? Play devil’s advocate for a second–what is a reasonable justification for keeping things as they are?
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I wish we could have sunny weather in races at least. It’s hard enough trying to keep track of what is happening up the front but rainy weather at night is like everyone has a permanent ghost power-up. Well, at least those who aren’t riding the tron bike.
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One statistic that we do have is that cycling platforms that don’t have Night and day have significantly less riders than Zwift. 
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I rather like the day/night cycle in Zwift. Riding around Watopia and ending up on top of Alpe’ at night is stunning because auroras and giant space lasers.
Oooo… somebody’s throwing… (wait for it) shade.
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5 votes here, 64 votes here:
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I’m trying to think of the last time I’ve seen night in Watopia. Definitely seen rain but don’t recall night. Is that something you don’t get with AppleTV?!
Fickle means exactly what i think it does and I’m standing by its use.
Of all the things Zwift offers, workouts, training programmes, group rides, races, multiple worlds, gradient simulation, different equipment, avatar customisation etc etc…
Somebody takes issue with a 10 minute period of darkness and is cancelling their membership based purely on that.
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565 votes here, and no word from Zwift.
So, as I stated before, this request is probably way down on the priority of things to look into.
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@Dan_Kothlow
Yes, that’s what I believe, too.
But I wrote my post because I did not like the
“HUGE number of people…”.
We have thousands of people zwifting each day and I think most of them (including me) has no problem with some changes of weather and day/night. I respect other opinions, but not false statements.
Ride on!
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