I know there are discussions about adding names onto the route maps. I was wondering if we could have some basic geographical markings as well, such as where a river, the sea, or the edge of a town might be as a sort of simple background shading. That would help with orienting oneself along a line, and for route learning would help recall where certain landmarks are. When I sought out one of the lines in google maps to learn about it a bit more, it became a fascinating journey of discovery for places I've never been to. Suddenly a simple line diagram started to have some context. Some basic context on the map would be brilliant.
It's something I think I heard in one of the streams that DTG would like to 'aspire' to get that amount of detail into the route map. It's something that they want to achieve in the near future. And I agree, the map needs extensive improvements as without labels or any visual indicators, it feels strange.
Might be nice, on the other hand, what prevents anyone interested in looking up the route in Google Earth or Google maps? I always give examples in the Route Guides I created. You can use these as a source of inspiration. I do not think DTG should take our hands on everything you can do or learn from this wonderful game. Recently I discovered some very interesting youtube movies on London Underground. This is an awesome addition to the route, but we can do this ourselves and share it and we do not need to waste our money by making DTG do it.
Quite simply because people want to view everything in game, there and then. Also, you might want to view an area in the game which you don’t know the name or location of yourself. So you can’t search for that place on Google Maps if you don’t know the location name of it. If you have to view things externally, there’s not really much point in having a map in the game. Not that it’s much of a map in the first place.
I have been thinking about this for a while now, and if you ask me, i would love to have station names, and gradients added to the map, so that way you can prepare for an incline or prepare to brake for a downhill.. Also some standard speed restrictions would be nice, as im sure the engineers get those kind of maps IRL as well..