Explorer multiplayer - Printable Version

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Explorer multiplayer - emalafeew - 09-16-2019

In today's Explorer build update, it's possible to ride and chat with another live player along the same route. This is an initial implementation--the more people that use it the more we'll improve it!

Here's how:

1. Both players must have "matchups enabled" on the More menu.  They are disabled by default.
2. By enabling matchups, you can then "find matchups" on the More menu, which lists all the online players that have enabled matchups.
3. Click on a player to join their ride!

Both riders will get notification they are matching up.  In a matchup you'll be able to see the other rider, including their head movements and steering, and be able to talk with them.

The other rider's gender will match what they see in 3rd person view. In 1st person view they currently appear male because we've tuned the HUD to the male's bike, but we should be able to fix that to follow the gender you
specify on vzfit.com.

The rider who was selected is the "leader" and the rider who did the selecting is the "follower".  If the leader chooses a different ride, the follower comes along on it.  So players can talk to each other about where they want to go.  If the follower chooses a different ride, the matchup is broken, which is also true if either ride disables matchups on the More menu. 

Because the follower can "jump ahead" to where the leader is on their route, they don't currently get leaderboard credit for that ride.  In a future build we are thinking of giving followers a percentage of the ride they pedaled, and being able to resume that far from the start on their own.

We don't currently support trainers and matchups together.  If you have a matchup begins your trainer will become inactive.  This is partly for performance and partly complexity for now.  

Riding with other live players is a blast and a way to meet exercise partners.  We hope people enable them, try to line up rides on this forum or VZfit Community page, and give us feedback!

-Eric


RE: Explorer multiplayer - emalafeew - 09-17-2019

There's a caveat to Step #2 above: Find Matchups only lists enabled players NOT ALSO looking at their Find Matchups.

What this means is if two players want to matchup, only one of them should look for the other on Find Matchups. It has to do with the lobby/room paradigm of our networking layer, but isn't awesome so we'll look for a fix.


RE: Explorer multiplayer - emalafeew - 09-17-2019

A couple easy ideas from Snowpelt to improve matchups

- In the HUD, replace % complete on both riders with their relative distance to one another (i.e. +500 m, -500 m). The negative distance could be motivating for the behind player to close the gap, and the positive distance could help the leader know where the follower is without constantly turning around.

- When hitting the Recenter button, we could move the follower closer to the leader if they had gotten separated.