This one is probably far out there, but we can dream can’t we?
One of my other hobbies has been virtual model railroading. Some railroad simulators have route editors where you have the tools to go into the program and create your favorite railroad. You can place tracks, roads, trees, buildings, and import terrain profiles. If you could do that with Zwift it would probably be a big hit with folks. Everyone has their favorite ride, with their favorite curves and hills. Plus, there are thousands of mountain and other epic rides that the creators of Zwift will never get around to modeling. Having a community of people making routes could be boon to the program.
This has been suggested before (I believe on the old forum).
First, the Zwift Engine is proprietary, as it was entirely built in house.
Second, I don’t see Zwift giving out that kind of control anytime soon.
Third, more roads would mean people would be spread out and Zwift would loss it’s social aspect that it is pushing.
Forth, they would need to have a downloadable package and that would take resources away from current projects.
I am sure there are more reasons, but I think the main one is that Zwift will not likely relinquish it’s control over world/route building. It sounds easy, but I am sure it is much more difficult in practice to create a package that would allow users to create routes/worlds that would then integrate with the Zwift world as we know it.
Not saying it will never happen, it just is more than like a long ways off.
This was build by one person. With everything you mentioned. I guess it could come one day.
Maybe a random map generator based on number of climbs, hills, height, lenght, difficulty.
Everything is possible.
They don’t have the same premise and you know it. One is virtual cycling and the other is a game about building coasters. Of course the one that is designed to have the user build coasters is going to give the user the ability to do so.
I guess you skipped over all the other reason why this is going to be a long time coming.
History shows us that games that give its users tools to express their creativity go on to be extremely successful. Zwift’s in house content team will eventually hit a ceiling of how many worlds they can create.
I made a similar request a while back: World builder
Of course Paul. You are right.
But seriously you could install such a feature. And i’m pretty sure Zwfit team would save a lot of money as soon as it is ready to use. You just save if you spend. Just need a full pallette of themes and so on. Zwifter realease their maps in a forum and people will rate it. The best will go online.
A random map generator for races would be very interesting feature.
The RCT example should just underline the principle or the approach. It doesnt matter if most people are lazy and would use something like that if just 1 % would use it and around 30 % of these 1% would do it in excessive the quality would be interesting to watch.
At no point did I ever say it would not come or that I didn’t want such a feature. All I am saying is that it is more than likely a long ways off. Other request should seriously be considered before this like World Selection, Customize HUD, Ride Leader Controls and many others. I am sure you can agree with that (probably not, but worth a try).
A feature like this could go against Zwift’s vision of a social indoor cycling platform, but thing can and will change over time.
What I meant was giving all users the ability to add additional routes/course to Zwift worlds would spread out the users base to an extend where you would be riding virtual alone and Zwift would loss its social riding feature.
I have been building routes, scenery, and rolling stock for years in railroad sims, even partnering with a major game maker to make and sell digital assets. Properly done, Zwift would give up no control and would actually enhance it’s offerings. All of your arguements could easily be satisfied. Having a local route available, such as Fort Mountian or the Three Mountain Three State ride when I first saw Zwift would have been a sure way to get my money from my pocket to Zwift, instead of the three weeks of hem-hawing around that I did.
Have you ever used Bkool? You can create your own courses on that based on existing GPS data, which has led to thousands of courses being created.
And they are all EMPTY. You pick a course at random and apart from some bots, no one else is riding it except you, because everyone is on a different course to everyone else. And that just makes it boring. I don’t want that experience in Zwift.
To each his own, but some of us also like to ride alone. I’m in it for the scenery, the exercise, and the mileage. The social aspect of it not so much.
Thousands of courses. Hm interesting. So thousands of riders enjoy to ride for themself. You are one person who dont like it and describe it as boring - i respect that.
If those riders enjoy Zwift but hate social aspect and Zwift would set on self createt routes, tracks, maps Zwift would get thousands of new subscribers who ride for themself… at least all of the riders on Zwift are social. Arent they? Do most of the Zwifters just push hard in every group ride and give a f*** about talking and enjoy to go deep and afterwards new topic pop up with people crying around why people just go into race mode in group rides … Just a thought.
I don’t know the possibility of a custom route builder, especially since it takes a surprisingly large amount of time and resources to create something like this but maybe, we could map a ride on Strava, or other similar program and to be able to ride that with the .GXP file but I don’t expect the full custom route option to happen.
A better option might be to release a map of watopia and the surrounding region, such as Zwift Insider has done and start a route design competition. After a month or so, Zwift picks their favorite 5-10 routes and the allows the riders/runners/paddlers/skiers to vote on their favorite design(s). The winner gets a free Zwift water bottle and their map gets incorporated into the game.
What i envisioned as a route builder would be a preselected sequence of turns that the user can choose before their ride, such that if they aren’t riding a predefined route, like say Hilly Route in Watopia, they wouldn’t have to pay attention to the turn selections as they come up during the ride because they would already have been selected. Is this already a thing?
