RowPro Version 6??

[gvcormac]

Did I dream it, or was there some talk a year or more ago of a RowPro Version 6 on the horizon?

[Carl Watts]

Correct it was December last year I was testing it.

Apparently it had to be moved to a "New Platform" but in the meantime I have moved to the Bike and Zwift and have dropped out of the testing program.

Not heard a peep from the guy that I handed the testing baton too and I believe he possibly now spends more time on EXR.

To be honest all the rowing software is 10 years behind Zwift.

[JaapvanE]

Correct it was December last year I was testing it.

Apparently it had to be moved to a "New Platform" but in the meantime I have moved to the Bike and Zwift and have dropped out of the testing program.

Yeah, reducing the code base is important, as a switch to tools like Unity (or similar) automatically gives them platform independence and rids them from all issues arising from the OS (which drain resources). Many people don't own a PC anymore, but do have an iPad. So for future viability, it is important to make that switch.

I hope they make it, as some competition drives innovation.

Not heard a peep from the guy that I handed the testing baton too and I believe he possibly now spends more time on EXR.

At EXR we had a small wave of users switching from RowPro to EXR. Looks like that RowPro users are losing their patience.

To be honest all the rowing software is 10 years behind Zwift.

Try EXR or CoZweat. Then we talk. I used Zwift, and their design is old fashioned and heavily outdated.

And Zwift has huge technical issues due to their old code base and their home brew rendering engine which consumes a lot of resources to keep in line with all the OS'es they run on. So they won't be improving soon.

[gvcormac]

What I like(d) RowPro for was common events. It would've been better with a zoom-like interface but I liked all getting together to do something and chatting (mostly before -- after would be good, too).

Please let me know if any of the other apps are good for this. I'm not particularly interested in animation or scenery, or just joining a group ride with no meaningful interaction.

The C2 contest software lets you set up contests, but there's no social media backup at all. RowPro is minimalist, but I haven't seen a viable competitor.

I'd be happy to see reviews of the other apps from this perspective.

[JaapvanE]

What I like(d) RowPro for was common events. It would've been better with a zoom-like interface but I liked all getting together to do something and chatting (mostly before -- after would be good, too).

Please let me know if any of the other apps are good for this. I'm not particularly interested in animation or scenery, or just joining a group ride with no meaningful interaction.

At EXR they have a group row every saturday, and a lot of discussion on Discord before and afterwards. In last months version (we get new functionality every month), they added a beta of the group row functionality (see https://exrgame.com/blog/update-1.26). Some additionaly use the Discord voice channel, but I don't think people will be interested in my music and screams of agony.

The Discord group is quite active, especially for finding people to row with in EXR, and you can join without owning EXR to get a feeling: you can join via https://discord.gg/QuNPgtCNuc

[gvcormac]

What I like(d) RowPro for was common events. It would've been better with a zoom-like interface but I liked all getting together to do something and chatting (mostly before -- after would be good, too).

Please let me know if any of the other apps are good for this. I'm not particularly interested in animation or scenery, or just joining a group ride with no meaningful interaction.

At EXR they have a group row every saturday, and a lot of discussion on Discord before and afterwards. In last months version (we get new functionality every month), they added a beta of the group row functionality (see https://exrgame.com/blog/update-1.26). Some additionaly use the Discord voice channel, but I don't think people will be interested in my music and screams of agony.

The Discord group is quite active, especially for finding people to row with in EXR, and you can join without owning EXR to get a feeling: you can join via https://discord.gg/QuNPgtCNuc

Thanks I'll check it out. I vaguely recall trying EXR when it first came out. I think it had only pre-set short distances at the time. But my memory is vague and I'll give it another shot.

[JaapvanE]

Thanks I'll check it out. I vaguely recall trying EXR when it first came out. I think it had only pre-set short distances at the time. But my memory is vague and I'll give it another shot.

Might be. In the beta they started with Lake EXR, which is a small pond with 1.7K as a maximum loop. That is fun with a big group going in circles for an hour, but alone it is just boring as you keep crossing the same bridge. They went public with adding Boston Charles River, which has 4 courses, including a 19.9K one. Disadvantage is that due to its incredible distance and two seperate routes, you encounter only a few people. After about 6 months they added Lake Bled (max distance before looping is 5K), short after that they added 3 sewer shortcuts to Boston and a few months ago they added Henley (max looping distance 10.3K). I like Henley the most, as it is a really the most fun course and due to its layout you always encounter some folks.

From functionality perspective: they added race functionality a couple of months ago (.5K, 1K and 2K tracks) and last month they added group rowing functionality. People can join friends and seem to be kept together then as well (rubberbanding). So from a functional perspective, they develop a lot and listen well to the community.

When I row alone, I typically encounter quite a few people on the featured track of the day, other tracks are much more quiet. They offer a 14 day trial. Hope to see you on virtual waters!

[Carl Watts]

And Zwift has huge technical issues due to their old code base and their home brew rendering engine which consumes a lot of resources to keep in line with all the OS'es they run on. So they won't be improving soon.

Kind of weird how you keep bashing Zwift.

To be honest what "Engine" it uses is irrelevant, its what the end user sees on the screen and its the best.

Not sure about resources I'm only using a 5 plus year old GTX750Ti and it had full HD and perfectly acceptable frame rates. Had more trouble getting decent frame rates with RowPro and the native resolution of it is terrible.

For those with an eye for detail using Zwift they will notice the fully synchronised shadows from the riders on the road or bridges, the dust from riders in front the rain splashes on the road and the road surface as it moves from dirt to cobbled streets in Paris. Water is always very hard to reproduce, its like fire so rowing will always struggle.

[JaapvanE]

To be honest what "Engine" it uses is irrelevant, its what the end user sees on the screen and its the best.

That is where you go wrong. First of all, Zwift isn't that good, it lacks true details. And the engine matters a lot, as Zwift has a stoneage aproach to development, while EXR and CoZweat use a much more effective approach.

The engine, be it Unreal or Unity, make development much more effective. They allow visual artists to quickly create lifelike environments using predefined 3D objects, and programmers to describe the gameplay. Both engines have been developed in the last decades and literally tens of manyears are spent each year to keep it compatible with current versions of Android, iOS, Windows, etc. But as thousands of games use the same platform, it does not hurt so much.

When your 3D solution is homebrew, those tens of manyears still have to be spent to keep code running on all platforms, only Zwift is the only one paying for it. With a team of around 500, partly not devs, that is a huge burden on the development budget not spent on new features.

Downside of homebrew stuff is that it also isn't as effective as these engines, which were designed as a modelling tool for huge productions from day one. So homebrew code gets obfuscated, difficult to maintain and thus development pace plummets further. The whole industry sees it happening, question remains whether Zwift also is already solving the issue or will it hit them by surprise.

RowPro's move to a new platform is basically what Zwift will be forced to do as well in the near future. The only question is whether it will kill the company or not.

Not sure about resources I'm only using a 5 plus year old GTX750Ti and it had full HD and perfectly acceptable frame rates. Had more trouble getting decent frame rates with RowPro and the native resolution of it is terrible.

That is not the type of resources I was talking about. I was talking about the number of developers you need to keep an application running and hopefully move forward.

But EXR runs flawless on a 6 year old Android phone I had laying around, combined with a 15" monitor. Screen duplication doesn't hit its performance.

In fact, that is where CoZweat and EXR diverge, despite using the same engine. EXR deliberatly simplifies 3D objects to keep it running on cheaper hardware, which makes trees and buildings look pretty good, but not hyper-real. CoZweat went the other way, aiming for a hyper-reality experience but at the cost of requiring a high end Apple ipad.

Both are valid options. For me, EXR wins at the moment, and we'll see what happens if CoZweat makes it onto Android. To me, CoZweat has a too outdated GUI concept (actually quite similar to Zwift) where EXR is a lot more spacious and clean. But that is a matter of preference I guess.

For those with an eye for detail using Zwift they will notice the fully synchronised shadows from the riders on the road or bridges, the dust from riders in front the rain splashes on the road and the road surface as it moves from dirt to cobbled streets in Paris.
Water is always very hard to reproduce, its like fire so rowing will always struggle.

You realize that that is an extremely easy taks for a 3D engine that is used for CGI in movies and high end games? These engines come with standard objects, like trees, water, rain and all their physical properties like reflections. It is the basic building blocks of creating 3D worlds. Both EXR and CoZweat have that out of the box without writing a single line of code. So of course you see your own reflection in the water, nicely rendered across the waves, perfectly in sync. Why wouldn't it be? You even see the boats sink in and come up again during the stroke.

EXR recently introduced three new carbonfibre Fluidesign skiffs in-game. When you see the sun hitting it at the right angle, you get that typical carbon fibre reflection with its chessboard-like structure, which disappears when you move again. I really love seeing these boats, as they look awesome when sliding through the water.

Just to illustrate how effective these engines are. My daughter has written her own game in Unity in a matter of days, and the hardest part was designing the gameplay together with her friends. Visuals are awesome. A 3D game designer I know explained that realism is a given, and the hardest part of designing games on these platforms is keeping the size down.

[Carl Watts]

Well something clearly is not "Easy" when RowPro 5.8 is already working and all they want to do is upgrade the graphics and its been over a year and its still not been released.

I tested it and its still not at the level of Zwift. One cannot help but conclude the development gets incredibly expensive and you need a whole pile of users or else its dead in the water from a business viewpoint.

Concept 2 should have had some software years ago now. I first used E-Row in 2000 with the Model C and the PM2+ as I could see the future of rowing online but in reality rowing software has hardly moved with the times.

Zwift has smoked it, over 5700 online today and I'm in a crap timezone. C Pacer ride with probably 80 riders and participation rates that rowing can only dream of.

Very disappointing really and it doesn't make sense to me.

[JaapvanE]

Well something clearly is not "Easy" when RowPro 5.8 is already working and all they want to do is upgrade the graphics and its been over a year and its still not been released.

I don't know what their migration plan is, but the typical main issue with the transition of homebrew to an engine is that you need to rearrange your logic. In homebrew systems, logic typically is mixed with presentation. So the look of a boat is intertwined with the behaviour of a boat, which makes sense when you build an app that is mainly concerned with boats. However, in an engine, the look of a boat is a 3D model doing its thing in a 3D environment, and you have to describe how boats interact with each other in a different model (something EXR hasn't mastered yet, as boats often run over each other or crash into bridges. We often joke you can see the HOCR DNA in the game) and have another model describing the game logic.

It is one of those things where starting new is quicker than trying to migrate the old code to a new code base. Here they have a first-mover disadvantage as users will rightfully not expect that the newer version is less elaborate or misses functionality. So RowPro has to dissect every piece of code, and decide where to put it, and how it should work with all other logic. With an older code base, that is a nightmare.

Another issue is that 3D modelling for an engine is real 3D work, requiring a different skill set. You don't need that many coders (they only make the physics work and determine the game logic), but you need more people with CAD-like graphic design competence. Here in the Netherlands, that is a totally different education. When I look at the people from EXR, you see more 3D designers than coders. And these 3D designers are doing different things, they sculp the environment and optimize rendering by removing elements that are invisible (as that is what determines app size and CPU/GPU load).

I tested it and its still not at the level of Zwift. One cannot help but conclude the development gets incredibly expensive and you need a whole pile of users or else its dead in the water from a business viewpoint.

It depends on your monetization model and the development approach.

When you commit to a engine, you can make a lot of progress fast. Engines like Unity and Unreal are quite friendly to independent developers (i.e. the smaller studio's). For smaller games, Unity is free. If your gross revenue stays under 1 million, Unreal is also free (otherwise you pas 5%). Especially if you try to replicate real worlds, you can use standard libraries for free (see https://quixel.com/megascans/home/ for a catalog) as well. So you need a small team of 3 or 4 people with the right skillsets and you are making a game quite easily. The EXR team consists of 8 people (see https://www.saltylemonentertainment.com/) where about 60% actually code/design. That is a small team.

And here, one of the key differences between CoZweat and EXR come into play. A huge cost driver is removing unneeded visual objects. For 3D models, the big work is optimizing the model to reduce CPU/GPU load, not actually making it as that is drag and drop work. Most libraries offer CGI-grade objects, so simplifying to make them run on a simple PC/Phone is a mandatory step. Some can be automated, but some must be done by hand. Where CoZweat is more detailed and requires much better hardware, it paradoxaly is cheaper to make. Teams like EXR have to put in a lot of effort in to reduce the number of polygons to be able to run on cheaper phones.

And from a business perspective, there are other ways to make money than just users. EXR is supported by both the Belgium and British rowing association. And they work with World Rowing to showcase the digital alternative to Olympic rowing (alongside RowCave, which also is extremely cool). Fluidesign partnered with EXR to have their racing shells in the game.

Concept 2 should have had some software years ago now. I first used E-Row in 2000 with the Model C and the PM2+ as I could see the future of rowing online but in reality rowing software has hardly moved with the times.

I don't know. Here we can learn from Zwift. Zwift is software first and put requirements on the machines that they allowed to connect and race.

EXR is machine independent, and is actually changing the market. In part with OpenRowingMonitor which many use to connect a non-C2 machine onto EXR, but also with SmartRow. SmartRow is a brilliant solution for waterrowers, and actually provides more reliable metrics then C2 does. So people can buy any machine they feel is right for them, and hop on the app.

A C2 only approach, like RowPro and CoZweat use, might work. But it excludes a huge portion of the market which still exists.

Zwift has smoked it, over 5700 online today and I'm in a crap timezone. C Pacer ride with probably 80 riders and participation rates that rowing can only dream of.

I'm probably in a good timezone (are there good timezones?) but my life rythem is dictated by my work and still I usually encounter people. Normally, I encounter some late UK people, some early US/Canadian people and some Australians/Kiwi's evading the heat by training late. I actually don't care if there are 20 or 2000 people on-line, as long as I encounter some friendly faces. And I usually do as the newer course layouts tend to do that. Especially on the course of the day, there always are some friendly and familiar faces.

In some sense, I would hate it if it would be a lot busier, as I hate a HOCR scenario where you continuously have to overtake people or be overtaken. As a cyclist I don't mind going with a group of 180 people through Innsbruck. But as a rower, I'd hate to go through Henley with 20 people around me. Don't get me wrong: I love our Saturday group rows on EXR, where 30+ rowers start together, but I'm always glad when the pace groups are formed and we don't have to pass all those bridges/tunnels all at the same time.

[Xrayvizhen]

FWIW: I'm currently in the free testing period of RowPro Ver. 5.8 and was given a 30% discount coupon code that didn't work. So I wrote to them and got back a reply with a code that does work and some additional info:

• 6.0 is still in Beta

• There will be improved graphics with at least one additional view. An image was attached to their reply and it looks very close to EXR quality.

• There will be a "MyRowPro" app for presumbly Android and IOS with the same functionality as the PC/Mac Versions

I've asked additional questions regarding whether or not there will be an additional cost to upgrade from 5.X to 6.0 some other things and am awaiting an answer. Meanwhile the new code they sent works so I'll continue with my free trial for a little longer before deciding.

[Carl Watts]

Used to be pretty cheap to upgrade, like USD$25 not sure what its like now.

I used to give so much feedback on bugs and product improvements I got it for free.

The graphics in V6 are a big step up but I'm worried it will never get released.

Just not enough people using it to row online anymore, even more annoying is clearly there are some in small groups who communicate to randomly setup a scheduled row at the last minute so you don't get to join.

Still a few recognisable names of some people that have been using it for years but they are not on 4 or 5 times a week for regular training.

We had a decent group using it but everyone has now gone in different directions.

[gvcormac]

The graphics in V6 are a big step up but I'm worried it will never get released.

Like the local Chinese restaurant with a permament sign: Opening soon in a new location.

[JaapvanE]

The graphics in V6 are a big step up but I'm worried it will never get released.

Like the local Chinese restaurant with a permament sign: Opening soon in a new location.

Itis a shame really, as you hope they will compete for the same people and start innovating. EXR is moving, but I think they could move faster if they feel some competitive pressure.