According to this link http://fmai.de/1ixXI it will be 10 $ per month starting October 29th. Any official confirmation of this report?
Check the Zwift Facebook page.
I am fine with $10 a month, but…
I hope for launch there is at least a way to pick your route, and that they add a flat route to the mix for those of us who don’t want to climb every ride…
I don’t know about other people but I won’t pay $10 a month to be forced to ride a specific route because that is the one someone else decided I should ride.
If not, I will simply re-signup for bkool and ride there until Zwift can offer a similar experience of allowing me to pick my own ride
Do you prefer Zwift over bkool? Or just looking for a change? Seems Zwift is more focused on attracting trainerroad users.
$10/pcm is fine (depending on what features are going to be available), but why are user over here in the UK being charged £8GBP ($12.26 at current exchange rates)?
I’d happily pay in $US via PayPal if that service is available?
provided the upcoming structured training allows me to ditch TrainerRoad (i.e. covers all the features that TrainerRoad Provides, while adding in a little of Zwift’s eye-candy appeal to get through the longer structured rides then $10 is pretty acceptable - though again I’d echo Cloggsy’s request to pay in $US via paypal to avoid the UK overcharging… Failing that - perhaps you could give us some idea WHY the UK is being charged extra - are you going to put extra development into your software so that we get to ride on the correct side of the road ? Are you going to include special “UK Potholes” to make us feel more at home ?
I’m in the same position, currently paying for trainer road and find it good but if Zwift can do the same job then the Trainer Road subscription is getting ditched straight away.
For the VAT thing, it’s only my suspicion but I’m thinking it’s a tax registration thing, e.g. although Zwift is mostly based in California, the co-founder is British and they give the impression of being a British company (amazon.co.uk links on facebook etc). If they are a British registered company that explains why they must charge VAT to UK customers, and why they don’t charge VAT to the likes of France and Germany.
I think if it’s explained why Brits are being charged more it’s not a problem, every time I’ve seen it asked on Zwift Facebook it’s ignored which really isn’t very good, this does not bode well for UK Zwift relations.
I think it’s important that Zwift make a statement on why the price is different and why the UK have been singled out, yes it’s a small amount but fear Zwift will loose a good few Brits that feel they are being penalised for no good reason.
Hey UK Zwifters!
We’d love to avoid charging you the VAT. But since we have an outpost in London we’re responsible for collecting it.
We like to keep things simple here at Zwift. £8 represents the closest round number with current exchange rates inclusive of VAT.
Ride on.
Scott
Zwift has been a great experience. And, $10 seems like a fair price. As a few have expressed, not having an ability to select which course you want to ride is is a turn off. Hopefully, this feature will be implemented soon after launch. At which point, I’ll sign up.
Have to agree there. Being restricted to one course is fair enough when it’s a beta test system. But being restricted to playing one at a time - not of our choosing - when we’re paying a monthly fee is an entirely different story.
Douglas, Mark +1.
I think there should be at least 3-4 courses to pick from when you join and at least 10-15 in total. For me it would just be too boring to ride one and the same course each and every day, until someone changes it. I totally understand that there are simply too few users to provide a wide range of courses to select from every time. This would simply result in empty courses. But I don’t see why there can’t be a BIT more variety. This made the whole thing a lot more attrative for me.
It doesn’t have to be separate courses, and in fact it’s better if it isn’t. The best thing, and I believe it’s Zwifts stated intention, is to build some new roads on Watopia, which loop off from the current circuit and take you to different places on the island. So part of the ride you’d be doing on the existing course and other parts of the ride you’d be going off on a different route.
Ideally it would be a dense road network where just like in real life you can plan out a route of your own choosing and either have the game turn for you at the junctions or prompt you to take the turns yourself.
I would like to see a situation, again just like real life, where you could plan a ride which would take 2-3 hours but doesn’t cover any of the same roads. I don’t think they need to worry too much about how busy it will be in any particular place - again just like in real life some places will be busy and some will be quiet. IMO the roads should change character too, a lot of great cycling comes on narrow single track roads, I guess these would be one way in the game.
If they do that there will be little reason to choose anything other than Watopia, but having said that having a couple of courses like Richmond, per year would add another dimension to thing.
I don’t think that anything like this will happen. This foils the whole concept of jerseys/ KOM/ QOM/ leaderboard as there is no possibility to compare the user’s results and I think this is what Zwift is really targeting a multiplayer experience where you participate to achieve the best result for a specific assessment.
I don’t say that what you describe isn’t an interesting approach … to be honest when I first head about zwift/ zwift island I assumed that it would be like this… and island where I can ride around freely - which would be very interesting.
Furthermore I don’t think that is really a lot more complicated to design a few different courses than to expand a complex world. I think the opposite is true. A world where you can move freely induces a lot implications about which you have to think and which you have to handle. Just putting another course into place simply needs a level designer tool (which most probably they already have) and an option to chose between different courses when you join the game. Such an option is that simple so I can’t imagine it will last more than a few hours to implement. The most complex task is to actually design the levels.
Anyway. There has to be more variety in the game in which way ever. Noone want’s to ride the same 10km loop over a whole winter season again and again.
I had read some posts from Eric implying that Watopia would expand and be a big theme park for everything that you like about cycling, how that’s to be implemented I have no idea - perhaps he didn’t have any idea at the time!
I don’t see the KOM thing to be a big issue really, it’s but one aspect of the game, Strava manages to have different segments and different KOM winners ;). There’s no reason why there can’t be half a dozen KOM segments on the island with the winner of each one getting a jersey.
I just think with the road network idea it’s something they could expand on gradually. but you’re spot on that they need to get some variety into the game - and fast. So perhaps just creating additional seperate loops on Watopia and have them selectable, would be a good way to do that, and once those courses are complete then they could move onto finding a way so that you can ride between them.
For me, at least, the social element is what is key. I hope that Zwift spends less time on the fancy visuals and more time creating courses (I could care less about the ferris wheel in the background).
The addition of new “paths” on Watopia seems interesting. At the same time, it may force one to be tied to a device/keyboard to make a turn. Maybe an option to pre-select what route you take would be helpful.
I’ve had a quick look on facebook to see what the official word is on new courses and it looks promising.
“We will indeed introduce selectable courses in the future. Features like workout mode and bluetooth compatibility are currently taking priority over this, however”
“Absolutely! More to come and we’ll get quicker at building them too! Think of Watopia becoming a big theme park for the landscapes and events you associate with cycling in the real world”
“our major release for launch is the workouts module, more courses are in the pipeline!”
“bring back Zwift island” - “anything is possible!”
The facebook comments indeed look promising. Am looking forward to the upcoming changes. The workout mode in addition to simply more courses as well.