First of all, we love your dedication and openess! We'll answer point by point but not quote your original post to save space.
We've done some R&D with Google Earth ourselves, and without going into details can say that it would only have worked on the Rift and not the Go or Quest, which we feel are the right headsets for the exercise given their price and portability. Some of the things you mention later could have been solved with a more powerful computer attached to the Rift, but we've done our best to translate to these all-in-one headsets.
Setup is our biggest headache since we aren't on the Oculus store, but we're working hard to make it clearer and also make the store a possibility in the future.
The FOV of the Quest and Go is a bit smaller than the Rift, granted.
The comparison of Google Earth with Google Streetview is a bit apples and oranges. Earth provides actual geometry, derived from satellite photos but viewable from any angle, that looks great from 200 ft or above but is very undetailed at street level. Streetview provides 360 panoramas at street level, but only every 50 feet or so, with just enough depth data to make it possible to traverse in VR. From our experience at street level it's a toss up about which is better, but it's also moot since Earth isn't available as a streaming API. If it were, we'd say at 200 ft high Google Earth is great but also requires a gaming PC to render.
In 3rd person view we use the POV of the Streetview camera for minimal distortion. We feel that continous motion is our main mode, with comfort mode available for those turned off the the intermediate distortion between white dots. And we have just released a new City Mode, which uses 3rd party building and street data to project Streetview images onto for greater stability in cities.
We're sorry you lost progress along your route. We save checkpoints at every necessary juncture, including when you take your headset off or it is about the run out of battery, which it fails to inform our engine about even! If you know the lat/lon where you got stuck we'd be happy to debug.
We appreciate you noticing how smoothly we process Streetview images... it's been a major challenge to do that on the Go & Quest memory and performance budgets. We feel that pedaling though the scenes is crucial to the sense of immersion and therefore exercise motivation you get. Note that our default continuous rendering mode works best in the country side, but our new City Mode (as of tonight) provides continuous rendering appropriate to cities. Comfort mode is still available to reduce distortion and motion in both cases.
The data provided by Streetview isn't perfect, which results in imperfect image transitions. But we've found redundant data that helps us make the best of it, in fact better than the Streetview website.
Hopefully you can come to trust VZfit to save your progress along rides, as we know it's very frustrating to cover the same ground, and feel that completing each ride is the ultimate reward.
Our HUD clock keeps moving forward when the pause menu is open, mostly because if you went into VZfit with a limited amount of time you'd want to know that even in the pause menu. But also because if you are riding with someone else online, their time keeps moving regardless of what you are doing.
If you leave your game for an extended period (greater than 30 minutes) we reset the clock and your spins, considering it a new session. Some people had complained when it didn't do that, it's hard to please everyone!
We don't currently allow you to advance along a ride because completing a ride is the main metric of accomplishment in Explorer. Any problems you have with saving ride progress should be reported to us, with lat/lon and ride name if possible, so we can fix.
We could offer the option to remove the avatar in comfort mode, though it does serve the purpose of showing when you are steering to follow the white dots. I don't know if you've read other explanations, but we feel it's critical you steer with accompanying head rotation to actually go around curves, to synchronize your eyes and inner ear for VR comfort.
We like your idea to call out when the white dots take a sharp angle at intersections, that you perhaps cannot see or weren't expecting early enough to start turning. Note we do automatically slow you down in that case, to help you regain the path.
Your idea to click on miles in the HUD is something we've been experimenting with, to allow people to customize the elements of the HUD.
We agree a 2D map in Explorer would be an awesome way to see your ride progress and scope out new rides. It's on our roadmap!
In addition to letting you customize the HUD we're also experimenting with letting you place it, including making it invisible if you wish.
Exporting your progress is also on our roadmap... we were thinking it would first appear in a Strava integration but could also let you download directly.
If you choose a ride start and end in game, you can uncheck "use highways" to avoid them.
We hope you stick with us, as we're committed to constant improvement of VZfit through updates every month between Explorer and Play. We may not be able to compete with the exact thing you are trying to do on the Rift, but to the extent your ideas would benefit everyone and are feasible, we will put them on our roadmap.
Finally thanks for being honest about the monthly subscription cost. It's what keeps us in business and allows us to support and improve VZfit. We are just trying to cover our costs on the sensor kit, but had to make it because off-the-shelf speed sensors and Bluetooth buttons aren't good enough for VR and VZfit.
Cheers and hope you enjoy our latest update!
We've done some R&D with Google Earth ourselves, and without going into details can say that it would only have worked on the Rift and not the Go or Quest, which we feel are the right headsets for the exercise given their price and portability. Some of the things you mention later could have been solved with a more powerful computer attached to the Rift, but we've done our best to translate to these all-in-one headsets.
Setup is our biggest headache since we aren't on the Oculus store, but we're working hard to make it clearer and also make the store a possibility in the future.
The FOV of the Quest and Go is a bit smaller than the Rift, granted.
The comparison of Google Earth with Google Streetview is a bit apples and oranges. Earth provides actual geometry, derived from satellite photos but viewable from any angle, that looks great from 200 ft or above but is very undetailed at street level. Streetview provides 360 panoramas at street level, but only every 50 feet or so, with just enough depth data to make it possible to traverse in VR. From our experience at street level it's a toss up about which is better, but it's also moot since Earth isn't available as a streaming API. If it were, we'd say at 200 ft high Google Earth is great but also requires a gaming PC to render.
In 3rd person view we use the POV of the Streetview camera for minimal distortion. We feel that continous motion is our main mode, with comfort mode available for those turned off the the intermediate distortion between white dots. And we have just released a new City Mode, which uses 3rd party building and street data to project Streetview images onto for greater stability in cities.
We're sorry you lost progress along your route. We save checkpoints at every necessary juncture, including when you take your headset off or it is about the run out of battery, which it fails to inform our engine about even! If you know the lat/lon where you got stuck we'd be happy to debug.
We appreciate you noticing how smoothly we process Streetview images... it's been a major challenge to do that on the Go & Quest memory and performance budgets. We feel that pedaling though the scenes is crucial to the sense of immersion and therefore exercise motivation you get. Note that our default continuous rendering mode works best in the country side, but our new City Mode (as of tonight) provides continuous rendering appropriate to cities. Comfort mode is still available to reduce distortion and motion in both cases.
The data provided by Streetview isn't perfect, which results in imperfect image transitions. But we've found redundant data that helps us make the best of it, in fact better than the Streetview website.
Hopefully you can come to trust VZfit to save your progress along rides, as we know it's very frustrating to cover the same ground, and feel that completing each ride is the ultimate reward.
Our HUD clock keeps moving forward when the pause menu is open, mostly because if you went into VZfit with a limited amount of time you'd want to know that even in the pause menu. But also because if you are riding with someone else online, their time keeps moving regardless of what you are doing.
If you leave your game for an extended period (greater than 30 minutes) we reset the clock and your spins, considering it a new session. Some people had complained when it didn't do that, it's hard to please everyone!
We don't currently allow you to advance along a ride because completing a ride is the main metric of accomplishment in Explorer. Any problems you have with saving ride progress should be reported to us, with lat/lon and ride name if possible, so we can fix.
We could offer the option to remove the avatar in comfort mode, though it does serve the purpose of showing when you are steering to follow the white dots. I don't know if you've read other explanations, but we feel it's critical you steer with accompanying head rotation to actually go around curves, to synchronize your eyes and inner ear for VR comfort.
We like your idea to call out when the white dots take a sharp angle at intersections, that you perhaps cannot see or weren't expecting early enough to start turning. Note we do automatically slow you down in that case, to help you regain the path.
Your idea to click on miles in the HUD is something we've been experimenting with, to allow people to customize the elements of the HUD.
We agree a 2D map in Explorer would be an awesome way to see your ride progress and scope out new rides. It's on our roadmap!
In addition to letting you customize the HUD we're also experimenting with letting you place it, including making it invisible if you wish.
Exporting your progress is also on our roadmap... we were thinking it would first appear in a Strava integration but could also let you download directly.
If you choose a ride start and end in game, you can uncheck "use highways" to avoid them.
We hope you stick with us, as we're committed to constant improvement of VZfit through updates every month between Explorer and Play. We may not be able to compete with the exact thing you are trying to do on the Rift, but to the extent your ideas would benefit everyone and are feasible, we will put them on our roadmap.
Finally thanks for being honest about the monthly subscription cost. It's what keeps us in business and allows us to support and improve VZfit. We are just trying to cover our costs on the sensor kit, but had to make it because off-the-shelf speed sensors and Bluetooth buttons aren't good enough for VR and VZfit.
Cheers and hope you enjoy our latest update!