I think we have a different definition of a whole lot bigger …
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I’m glad Zwift did not lock these new routes down to event only until the end of the Tour Fever events.
There are significant bumps with all riders either dropping or jumping going in and out of the circle around the Arc de Triomphe.
This is similar to a couple of intersections in Neokyo, and the dirt transition to Yumezi.
Should have moved Paris to the France world before doing this imo.
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Thanks for explaining but at least a custom route builder would allows to create a new routes in existing roads that would suit our training needs.
And Makuri and Scotland are much smaller than Watopia and are both attractive worlds to cycle in if Watopia is already at its limit.
Oh and I wouldn’t mind a brief frame drop or stutter occasionally when entering a new sector if that can make the map bigger
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This isn’t something that is likely in short to medium term due to the complexity of building routes.
We are talking about worlds not loading at all.
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So expansion stops because of device limitation? I think the best thing about zwift is the ability that for little expense you can be up and running but minimum entry point should not be a barrier to development. People either higher end devices rightly want better experiences. Obviously a problem when everyone isn’t on the same device like Xbox or PS. But… it’s a problem that hopefully zwift can fix. I’ve been on zwift for 9 years and honestly, the platform has come a long long way but it is starting to feel a little stale these days.
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Eric M said years ago zwift had the ability to create many kind of roads very very quickly. What changed?
I don’t know the specifics of that conversation but for the new routes I am having added in August, I had to submit them around 3 months in advance.
Not necessarily. We don’t really want to increase the level for minimum requirements but may have to at some stage to allow us to continue to grow.
We continue as we have in recent years, to release two expansions yearly. You may note we have only had one so far this year.
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Some / many will disagree, but personally I prefer Zwift remain backwards compatible for as long as possible.
Computing is getting expensive, and for anyone that has been paying attention, devices being sold / added to the market TODAY, literally have lower specs than ones from the start of this decade, and that’s not bending the truth slightly, it’s factual. There are more new laptops on the market now being sold with 8gb of ram and lower solid state space, than those from pre-2020, and desktops are becoming less commonplace… and the desktops that are being sold at big box stores are being shipped out with GPUs that are now 5+ years old.
I would love to see ZHQ pump out a statistic of devices in use by its userbase; something Steam I think still does yearly; including things like monitor resolutions.
But I would love to know how much of Zwift users are still on the bare minimum specs. I imagine quite a lot, and technically I’m one of those users with a few of my devices I use on the weekly, like an iPhone 7+ no longer supported, Mac Pro I use in the garage, a first gen iPad Pro for mobile… heck, even my daily indoor “newest” setup I use has a 1080Ti… think of how old that is now! (2017 for anyone counting)
I know holding back like this really stunts advancements in some ways, but it’s what keeps Zwift being what it is; which is community driven.
Shoving new users off the platform by forcing newer devices would be the death of Zwift for I’m wiling to bet, the majority.
I think the worlds in Zwift could do with more asset abuse though. It’s rare to see two of the same thing twice. If it means we could have world sizes increase even 25% if we have to deal with seeing two of the same buildings or rocks, I am for it.
It’s not too different from being in Atlanta and seeing a Waffle House across from a Waffle House.
Canadians with Tim Hortons get it…
Derail time; if anyone is curious how or why stuff like this happens with franchises… it’s because they want the property. They don’t care about the sales or how well one does vs the other… It’s all about the property value when they go to sell.
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At a guess without seeing numbers, I would anticipate quite a number of people on min spec ATV and iPhone/iPad.
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As someone on a computer that’s way overkill for Zwift, I agree. A lot could probably done to improve world size handling on potatoes, and making custom routes easy to create, but both would require a major overhaul if not complete rewrite of the engine. Which I’d love to see, but realistically that’s not happening any time soon. So until the rampocalypse ends we’ve got to accept the limitations that exist.
It’s still worth noting that graphical advancements aren’t at a total halt because of this either.
Just this past year we received an expansion of multi point lighting, most obviously with workout arches. Also well noticed in Neokyo.
Two or so years ago? We received massively improved ground and rock wall textures along with some reflective surfaces like on wet roads.
These small things do add up but are easily overlooked.
My assumption is things like Makuri are system heavy due to my mention earlier; so many unique biomes; not actually the physical size of the area, but all of the unique textures and items. I could be wrong, but I know that that isn’t helping.
Which is why I say things like side-roads that are using the same assets or clones of, to effectively double the roads available, would be a really wise design choice for the future.
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+1 Nuse
Zwift being conservative with graphics while ensuring the game play is the thing that gets the attention (insert your fav bug here) is a strategy that hasn’t harmed Nintendo, conversely I keep hearing that these expensive new games have great photo realistic graphics but the game play is meh at best !
The cost of Hardware… I’m glad Zwift keep to only removing support as the OEM sunsets the hard or software.
Fancy graphics can look very generic (standard asset packages) unless you invest in top end assets, I imagine the guys who want cutting edge 4k graphics don’t want to pay cutting edge 4k graphics subscription rates !
The Waffle House thing, are they the same franchise holder I wonder, or one for each direction 
I still think eventually Zwift will need a new graphics engine - that could help. Some other games are having amazing looking graphics with basic hardware requirements.
I am also in this AI boom ram crisis, I want to upgrade one computer badly with more RAM but since it uses ECC ram, that is ridiculously expensive. If I had been bold and purchased the full 1.5TB (12x 128GB LRDIMM) a year ago I could have probably resold it for a gigantic profit now. Not just a thousand dollars profit but many thousands. 
People will just stop buying new computers because they are too costly. Computer manufacturers will lose out as well. Storage, GPU and memory manufacturers will probably get by with the data centre boom for now until that goes bust.
Even windows just sort of runs somewhat okay with 8GB. Even Apple has increased minimum RAM despite stubbornly claiming 8GB was fine for years. It is becoming necessary to have more than 8GB.
Waffles and Starbucks!
I’m there.
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I’m going to call this the Min Effect. They pursue what seems to be his personal desires and ignore the community’s requests. This, in particular Bologna has been asked for since the event only course was released. Especially as that area looks amazing to ride
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Just wanted to share some thoughts on the new Paris routes (and a picture of Montmartre!). 
While I love the concept, I’m a bit disappointed as I feel they miss that beautiful Parisian charm. Right now, it feels a little unfinished and a mix between London and Richmond.
While I love the concept, I’m a bit disappointed as I feel they miss that beautiful Parisian charm. Right now, it feels a little unfinished and a mix between London and Richmond.
I’d love to see more flat routes in beautifully designed environments like Scotland or Makuri Islands soon! 
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As I have never been to Paris irl, I think that extensions are just wonderful.
Never knew there was a big hill in middle of the city
Thanks zwift for this great new roads , even 13 km make a big difference.
I’m around since the days we only had 5 routes on jerves island.
Zwift has come a long way.
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For Us who did mini Speed run of some of the routes now relock up, will we have to redo them ? @James_Zwift