Last night Game Master Jon Mayfield published a long-awaited post sharing Zwift’s plans for “Map Choice.” Zwifters (including myself) are reading this post with interest since we’ve been requesting this ability for quite some time.
Jon’s post thoughfully lays out the reasons Map Choice is what it is today. He begins with a statement of what makes Zwift special:
From the very start we chose to focus our efforts on a connected experience where you are part of a world populated by others, rather than the typical solution of the day (and now) of having countless courses to choose from, each being a solo or sparsely populated experience.
No one will dispute the wisdom of Zwift focusing on a social, connected experience. In fact, I would argue that this, more than anything else, is what makes Zwift special.
Jon also shares a short history lesson on how the Zwift community thrived even in its early days on Jarvis Island in 2014 (read more about Jarvis). And even back then, Jon says, Zwifters were requesting more worlds and questioning the logic of having a very limited map selection!
So What’s Next?
Now it is November 2018, and everyone knows some sort of World Choice is imminent. The only questions are how will it work, and when will it happen? In typical mysterious Mayfield style, he doesn’t answer either question specifically but gives us some big clues.
How Will It Work?
Zwift’s vision for world swapping is to have Watopia always be live, working as a sort of “hub” for the Zwift universe. Want to ride somewhere else? You can join an event held in another world (this functionality launched May 30, 2018) or (coming soon!) you will be able to take an airplane to the “guest map” of the day.
The guest map idea is analogous to our current course schedule calendar. This “restricted rotation” has some advantages, as Jon explains:
With Watopia being a hub it also means our guest maps can be smaller, more experimental, and even seasonal allowing us to introduce fresh rides without having to spend so much time making something that can support 8,000 simultaneous Zwifters.
Zwift’s concept art for the “Watopia Hub” idea… from 2015! In this example Richmond would be the guest map of the day.
Is this what the new World Choice interface will look like once it’s live this winter? Jon says:
We’ve still got some work to do on the user interface for this, and while it’s not quite as cartoony looking as the 2015 mockup above, it’s probably not going to end up too far from it either.
When Will It Happen?
We all want this to happen yesterday, of course. But to the question of “When?” Jon replies:
We’re actively working on this final step of having Watopia + a guest map (or maps), and it’s coming this winter.
My Comments
I see the rationale behind Zwift’s plans, and agree this is a big step in the right direction. It will be interesting to see how many riders choose the guest map of the day, because this will indicate just how much people care about riding in less-populated worlds. What if the vast majority of Zwifters choose to stay in Watopia? That means Zwift needs to focus on building it out further. On the other hand, if the guest maps also get crowded Zwift may need to make more than one available at a time.
I’ll also say Zwift is running late releasing World Choice. I would have liked to see it a year ago, because even back then free riding any course but Watopia had become a conga-line experience. Even the Watopia flat routes are quite crowded these days, so it is good to see Jon mention a flat expansion for Watopia coming soon as well.
With all that said, even if they’re running a bit late Zwift is still an amazing platform delivering a social indoor training experience like no other–so I’m excited about what the near future has in store for our community.
The crowded routes really aren’t that big a deal given that we literally ride through the people in front of us. We don’t get stuck behind them.
I think the bigger issue is that the routes can become stale so variety and choices will help with that.
Staleness is an issue for sure.
I suppose the crowding bugs some more than others…. it probably depends on what type of rides you do, and even how big your screen is. For me, doing free rides on a big screen and never on a TT bike… I hate getting stuck behind riders endlessly, and having my avatar move back and forth around people. And I just don’t like the “crowded” feeling. I like having riders nearby, but not a lot of them all the time!
But I know folks who just ride TT bikes all the time, or do workouts, or Zwift on a small screen while watching Netflix… of course those folks won’t really care about crowding.
I really like the idea of smaller experimental maps (maybe 250m 😉 ) and limited run maps. Using Watopia as the base map I think is a good idea since it has the most road to work with and rarely feels all too crowded. But the most exciting piece of news is of course more flat roads #FlatRoadsForever
Hi, would if we had map choice, but also would love the option to enter a velodrome mode. Or maybe a Paris Roubaix map with a velodrome built into the map. Some of the maximal type efforts and training practices are difficult to do with gradient changes, and should not be limited or constrained by engaging workout mode. Or just make each map have a small circuit or loop where its completely flat with a 0% grade.
The one thing that Zwift lacks for me is an interactive route designer that allows you to map out a training session and then lets Zwift route you as you’ve planned. The default routes are great – but sometimes I will avoid sections if I am fatigued or double back if I want to up the KMs! It’d be great to see something like this brought in… and I am guessing not too hard to impliment on a local level.
When Ive used the prefs.xml hack to change back to Watopia, Ive never found it empty.
Not that a less populated world would bother me.
sounds really interesting 🙂
i would say that for me it just doesnt matter i am happy to follow the zwift calendar and ride what is available,which also forces people to ride something different every other day but having the choice would be nice …
hope zwift also takes into consideration that there might be 40% of the online riders that allready use zwift hacks to select worlds
more flat route? no please, we need some true climb. Alpe is not enough
Alpe is by far the best thing in Zwift currently if you’re looking to do a free ride in my view. It’s so well done, and challenging, but after seeing the futuristic part of upper New York I’m now craving for another massive climb, but done in that futuristic style.
One Alpe just isn’t enough. Need a bunch of them now and then we can have some super climbing challenges or fondos where you get teleported near the base of the next climb after descending the one you’ve just done.
Indoor training could go epic!
It depends. For me zwift have really a lot of climbs: with the 4 horseman route u can climb more than 2000 m in 89 kms!!!
We are dirrent kind of athletes..as a triathlete i’d like a ‘something like kona’ course but i know it s difficult make all happy with add on. The last update in watopia was a climb, this time is a flat…maybe is a good thing to alternate climbs with flats
The problem is, the two flat routes on Watopia are overcrowded. The Alpe and Epic KOM are not! Simple as that. They need more flat routes, to spread the load across more roads so it’s not a conga line.
Good to finally see map choice on the imminent horizon! I like the idea of having Watopia as the base map and a second “world” available on a daily rotation. Makes good sense.
I lead a Zwift weekly ride for beginners and folks recovering from injuries. We have limited choices and I would love to see more flat route options that I can pick (on the fly) as a ride leader. So I’m not at all opposed to more climbs, but don’t forget that those who are just starting out need and want variety as well.
I’m curious about how this update wil be combined with the “meet up” feature i’m waiting. For a Team the possibility to ride togheter in watopia and also havin the possiblity to create own events in INN or NYC could be really great.
Yeah clearly I have a bias towards climbing (I did Four Horsemen on day 1 of release and still thought it wasn’t really enough for a truly epic challenge) but I’d be more than happy to see them do a full on Kona bike/run course for triathletes to train on. Being a virtual world it has no boundaries and should then in theory have the most exciting options for everyone.
Problem I guess with this (development wise) is the sheer length of the route, whereas something epic for climbers is still relatively short.
Yeah flat routes have their place, not just for beginners but even the best riders need them for different types of efforts. That said, for beginners and people with low end FTPs, why not create group workouts for them. That way you have more control over what’s happening. I see a lot of group rides that are supposed to be an easy pace but are nothing like it.
Creating easy efforts seems like a far smarter option for a lot of groups, especially as w/kg is virtually meaningless on the flats and that’s how groups are still advertising their rides.
As I’ve posted in the past in the feature requests, I hope the Watopia expansion is some kind of Flandrian experience. Mainly flat with punchy climbs – some cobbled, which will test riders and equipment.
For the world changing. I didn’t know about this old scenario. Seems very sensible though. I like the idea of Watopia always being there (and expanding). Id like to see 2 guest maps however.
All, in all, welcome news.
Just got an email from Zwift HQ about the end of the ‘old friends’ discount. In this mail they mention level 26. Any clue? Being stuck at 25 for over a year now this sounds interesting. Does not compensate for the ridiculous increase of the fee, but who knows more?
Yeah, they’ll be bumping it up to level 40 or 50 very soon!
I imagined some kind of a classics county, with a dense network of roads including the iconic sections, flat and climbs, from the monuments.
Ideally, for racing, that would come with the kind of route builder mentioned above, so you could recreate things with a Roubaix, Flanders, Fleche, Liege type feel as you chose…..
I’d like to see something like that also. Or at least the ability to tailor your own routes around a world and save them, a bit like having your own tailored workouts that you can make yourself and upload – now that is a great feature that Zwift got right, proving that they can do great features when it suits them.
All in all, Zwift need to stop adding roads for a while and start putting their resources into improving the game experience instead. Like what’s happening to level 26 and above? Where’s all the new and latest bikes and wheels? I could write a huge list of things that need fixing and improving in Zwift but all they do is talk about the new road that they’re working on to distract us (see article above).
I’ve knee problems and would time to time prefer more flat routes with long distance.
Why not create gateways to the other worlds from Watopia located at various and varying places within Watopia? One could always be located a short “warm-up” away from the start for those who really are not in the mood for Watopia that day.
Watopia Jungle route is still not very crowded. Usually ride there.
What’s happened to the stuff (hiding some avatars) promised “this month”, and to guest maps “this winter”? I’m not subscribing again until I can get a reasonable rider density – at the moment it’s awful!
I agree with you Westy. I’ve been riding on zwift now for several months and I am getting tired of the same old routes.
I’ve always thought it odd that the map choice was very limited. With the “game” aspect of Zwift, I’d love to be able to ride round something like the courses in Mario Kart, for example. Of course they’d have to be different, but an option of a more arcade-style aspect to Zwift would help keep things interesting and make for some excellent racing!