i have a gut feeling that the reason this ■■■■ show is even happening is precisely because the relationship between wtrl and zwift is not as harmonious and mutually beneficial as people assume it is
seems to me like wtrl have an idea, which may or may not be a dumbass idea, and zwift aren’t letting them implement it properly
Idea is stupid, implementation even worse, communication somehow the worst.
I think many of us are still maintenanced from that debacle and Zwift cant do anything because its a platform that they do not control
organisers relying on 3rd party/social media sites just gives Zwift an easy out on situations where people get banned from fakebook groups etc just for speaking a bit of truth
Zwift has leverage because they put their name on the events and host the events. ZRL could be handed to another organizer or replaced with a different series on the calendar. This is a choice.
I suspect that WTRL have a contract still running with Zwift for them to run ZRL. Let’s hope that contract is expiring soon and isn’t ridiculously long.
Zwift only have themselves to blame. It was their decision to hamd WTRL so much power.
Precisely.
There are many series which are more interesting, with better score system etc. The only advantage of ZRL is “zwift” moniker and hence mass participation.
Zwift should have forced CE onto ZRL but they didnt, this is causing more issues having multiple systems in place
Zwift are extremely culpable in this mess
I’m sure we’ll never see the contract, but if it doesn’t contain provisions to protect their brand and give them a modicum of control, then it’s a bad contract.
And even if you had, racers shouldn’t need to go to websites and research the opposition to know which individuals they’re “battling” against. Even if they did that research, are they then supposed to memorise it? Write it down on a piece of paper taped to the monitor?
I can only see this thing working if the game shows racers who they are up against. Colour coding on Riders Nearby and a number pinned to the back of the avatar would be a start, but not a full solution as anything based solely on colour isn’t accessible.
I’m guessing that WTRL asked Zwift to provide an in-game system to show who you were battling, Zwft either said “no” or “we’ll do it zoon”, but WTRL decided to go ahead with it anyway and rely on Sauce, 3rd party websites, etc.
I don’t believe this had anything to do with sauce or 3rd party website. All coding was being done at WTRLs end with the api access they have to zwift data they have all the information they need
I may be missing something, but it seems like to even rely on third party sites (assuming everyone is willing and/or can afford to pay), you’d still need to be able to see a list of your competitors names you could then mark them. I have not seen any way to get that information.
I think you misunderstand me. I was talking about how you see in-game who you’re competing with for SBPs.
If you know who you’re battling against (if the WTRL site provides that info) then you could use Sauce to have it show you were those riders are relative to you.
Which is a terrible way forward.
I think the main problem is that Zwift didn’t tell WTRL “no” when they came up with the idea of SBPs.
I don’t even think it’s a terrible idea, it’s just normally sensible to develop and test something like this away from production before announcing it as a game changer.
It is a bad idea though. Just expand FIN and FAL points and be done with it. Besides per WTRL this has been in the works for 9 months and ACE is in its 4th year so it’s good to go and isn’t just being throw in to production half-baked.
Well that’s obviously a crock isn’t it? 
