A comment I’ve made in other threads similar to this: Zwift could easily merge several worlds. London and Yorkshire could be one world, Paris and France another. Not sure why they keep those separate. (technical limitation? wanting to reserve some worlds for tiny, crit use?) Richmond is another I’d like collapsed into something but I get that would upset a bunch of people given it’s meant to be a “pure” UCI course.
Also: the TOMI has added another off-rotation option - lots of people accessing that via the tour stages buttons. Thanks @Oliver_ZRace_Central for hosting the ride this morning on “Island Outskirts” - that was a badge-hunt for a bunch of us.
It certainly makes sense to do this, but I suspect it is less easy than we imagine, because worlds are developed separately. France+Paris+Innsbruck+Bologna, Yorkshire+London, Richmond+New York would have a nice effect on the calendar (just call them UK and Europe and US).
Somewhat separately, I think it would be cool to have ‘warps’ between the worlds that are active.
If Watopia and New York and Paris are active on a given day, it would be neat to be able to ride to a certain intersection in Watopia, turn right onto that dead-end road, into that cave, and come out the other side in New York
I might start a feature request thread about that.
So all of the new roads introduced in a long while have been in Makuri but there’s almost half this month straight where this world isn’t available. I know there are work arounds (pacers, meetups, etc.) but given all the recent development has gone into Makuri I have to think it’s time that it joins Watopia as “always available”.
Makuri is large enough now, I’d agree with that. If whatever metrics Zwift is using about user density (I still think they are using those) support it, Makuri full-time would make perfect sense.
Personally I think the whole concept of separate “worlds” is unnecessary. I’d love all the roads to be linked together. It would make for properly epic rides, with much more variety of scenery and stop you having to do endless “laps” of routes - in that way it would much better reflect a real-world ride where (except in certain instances like crits/shorter races) you rarely go round and round in circles - certainly you have the option not to and to… explore the world
I wonder if its a technical limitation that presents this, or a philosophical one…
I suspect (but don’t actually know) that it’s about making sure the on calendar worlds are well populated. I also suspect the existing worlds are completely separate development projects that can’t be easily merged. I’d be happy with another world on the regular calendar, but one of the things I like about Zwift compared to competing products is that the others are a wasteland with almost no riders, often packed with bots. If Makuri didn’t have so many technical problems I would say it should be available every day in addition to the current set.
I think that may have been a concern initially, but I’m not sure it makes sense now given the size of the user base.
Its almost the opposite problem - some of the roads in Watopia especially now are almost approaching “traffic jam” levels (Tempus Fugit anyone?).
I think whether users want to ride surrounded by hundreds of others (group ride/pace bot) or ride solo should actually be a choice, just like it is in the real world. Loads of people love club rides, group rides in the real world, and in Zwift (I enjoy both!). But sometimes an awful lot of people simply want to ride in relative solace, lost in their thoughts.
And lets be honest - you already can ride any world you want currently, Zwift just makes it unnecessarily hard.
Way back, as in years and years back, the reason given was it wouldn’t integrate with Strava. A number of us pointed out that they already do it in London with the underground to the countryside, and that side doesn’t line up with any real world roads on the maps in Strava. Fwiw I never even look at my Zwift rides on a map in Strava and suspect that’s the same for a lot of others.
Also, Strava code isn’t carved in stone either. If Zwift actually wanted to do this, I would expect a solution for the transitions could be worked out, ideally by collaborating with Strava before release. Saying it is because of Strava really is nothing but a convenient excuse not to do it.
