I think there was perhaps confusion around the communication on what the 'Training Center' would be. When Matt referred to it as putting all the tutorials and training info in one place, what he meant was that as feature it would centralise everything in one part of the game's UI, not that it would put everything in one particular route. It makes sense for certain aspects to remain route-based, if you think of the various safety systems and signaling quirks that can come with any route, very quickly it becomes obvious that it would be a lot of effort to start putting that in one route, and then continually expanding it. The implication would be the training centre bulking out with more and more signalling and safety equipment, even if you're not buying any of the DLC to make it relevant. It-s duplication and redundancy all in one. For example, why replicate the GNT system from Dresden-Chemnitz in a training centre, for those who don't have a train or route to make it relevant? And what if it's years before it gets used on any other German route? And what happens if it's something a third party develops? They then have to go put it into the training centre route? Of, course, you could say "ah, but the basics, the real basics like signals, they could at least be in the training centre route", yes but the basics still vary, signals in Germany look different depending on what part of the country they are in, is that basic enough to need an explanation or not? Similarly the UK has lots of signals that look slightly different, so do you need to cover semaphores and dual aspect signals in the training centre, or can one just sub for the other? How do you cover the multiple variations of how junctions can be handled with signalling and safety equipment? Just keep adding new bits of track? It's just one open ended question after another, the answers for which don't sit within a single route. I liked the look of the route itself, and personally I do see the value of a free roam track for practice, and really it's down to the player in any case, some would prefer to understand the implication of weather etc on brakes, or play around with the functionality of locos without necessarily being in a timetable, building their own scenario, or joining a strict guided tutorial, and it's perfectly fair that DTG have decided to give players something like that. Everything in this game can be described as a trade-off against time spent developing something else, so there is very limited value in complaining about that implication, it quickly turns in to "why can't they do what I want instead of what someone else wants".
Not so. I would venture that there will be one (PZB/LZB) or two (LZB and PZB) German signaling tutorials, built into the Kassel route from the start, with a link button to them in the Training Center portion of the UI. Same with a UK training scenario built into SEHS, and an American one on Cajon Pass (although US systems will be a bit trickier, since every railroad has its own).
Ah, but we are no longer in the days of TSW2, where every user had the same base three routes - now there will be players who have German routes but don't have Kassel-Wurzburg for the German signalling tutorials, for example. So either those players miss out on the tutorials or the tutorials get duplicated for every new route.
This is just another example of an incomplete solution. If the Training Center is such an important part of the game, why not make it truly a center for everything? All kinds of routes there, including signalling systems, at least for the basics, or even creating separate routes in the same environments where you could load into from the main building, for specialized tasks. But no, these tutorials are not part of the Center. It's like when Microsoft releases a new Windows but half of the UI is still from the older version, and you still have to open the Control Panel to get things done.
All three core route for TSW3 are decent enough for me tbh. All three have different characteristics.
Just had a chance to watch this stream. The stutters and such have been widely covered. If this is how the game actually plays, not good. If this is due to another reason, such as streaming from the same PC, etc., that's fairly inexcusable on DTG's part. They've been doing this for too long to be that bad. As for the Training Center concept itself, there was nothing revealed to explain why I would want this. I don't understand why I would want to drive my trains on this short, fake route when I could drive them on their "real" routes. The supposed advantages, such as centralised training and decoupling, could be implemented through the UI with no need for a training track whatsoever. The focus on things like map collectibles and sitting on benches only highlighted how shallow this experience appears. Besides the technical problems, I found the presentation in general off-putting. The innuendo that locked doors could represent as-yet unannounced features was fairly insulting. Considering all the fixes and improvements the player base has been waiting for, it's more likely that those rooms will never be used for anything. But they were happy to drop hints and let the players connect the dots; all hype and no promises. It really does look like Sam was stalling in order to avoid driving anything else. Why didn't he just get into the other end of the 395 after he removed the key? Sure I forget how to cut in the brakes sometimes too, but once I get to the computer screen it's really old hat. But not for Sam, apparently. Of course no one can say for sure if he was stalling, but in any case I felt that the presentation was a little condescending, and in any case too disjointed and awkward to be meaningful. After something like this I would have cancelled the other streams as well. Everything I have heard about this game after the initial announcement has made me want it less and less. Whatever DTG is doing doesn't seem to make much sense. I'll just wait for the early adopters to give me the straight story, and then maybe pick this up when the save function is reintroduced. For all the early adopters out there, thanks for all the future Intel, and good luck!
All I saw in the stream was a test track. That's all. You get in any train, fiddle around with the controls to work it out yourself, and see how fast you can go. Perhaps the training centre does give you a quick way to get to existing tutorials on the routes – but what do those tutorials give you? They usually show you where the throttle and one type of brake is, how to get the train moving and how to stop, but little more. A training centre should be teaching me what everything on each loco is for. Not just where the driver's brake, the train brake, the straight brake are and telling me to apply them – but why do the trains have multiple braking systems? What is the specific application of each type? Because I still don't know. I know they are there, and I know they all seem to stop the train, but how do I choose which one to use and in what situation and why? Where can I learn PZB, LZB, ASW? And different signalling? Sure, Matt has done some videos on YouTube for such topics, but they have a lot of filler. The training centre could have "projector presentations" in one of the rooms to teach such things, even with interactive 2D simulations. This is what I expected the training centre to be: to teach. And I hope it can be that. Unless there is a lot they're holding back about it. But why, then, would you do a showcase video for the feature and just have someone driving round in a circle, and at worst fumbling around at the controls, when it should be teaching him the controls as he goes...
Well this was always the problem, the tutorials always taught the "low hanging fruit" like using basic controls and moving, but not the more complex items which *need* a tutorial. Same with the video tutorials they made, they were going to get more advanced, but never did. Once again they seem to have gone to town on the basics for the training centre but not quite got to those advanced areas. However, I thought it was said that in one of the classrooms there is a laptop with pink headphones and you can use this to watch the signalling tutorials that Matt did on youtube streams. That would be a step forward because it was previously the case that you couldn't embed youtube videos inside the game, hopefully this has been fixed. It would still be better if they actually had signals in the test track and you could click on them and it would tell you about them. There could even be a test as to what they mean and you could see how much you had learned with feedback. There should be points with tutorials attached, coupling/uncoupling, brake types and settings etc and so on. Learning is not a passive activity, it is an active one and you learn far more from doing something yourself with good feedback. The improvements to the HUD seen in the German stream may help in this regard especially as you start out. You can then turn the new element off and try doing it without the prompts.
I believe the bit about headphones and a laptop was genuine, but I think the rest of it was completely tongue in cheek humour.
Find it impressive and what they could have done is a dual gauge section 1m Metre Gauge inside a Standard Gauge track which is also compatible with Australian and Japanese 1.067m cape gauge trains. That way Arosa line trains can roam the training centre
I watched the stream, I still don’t understand why it was necessary to waste time on this center? What's the point? It does not teach signals, only how to slow down and accelerate. Some senselessness.
Yeah, the training center seems like a bit of waisted time that should have been spend fixing the tons of bugs and issues
I agree with a number of comments. I miss manuals I can read, or use to look up things again. These may be interactive and online as well. The videos DTG made are not very good. The last one I saw, for driving steam engines is really bad. It is spoken at high speed and a lot things are addressed very briefly. They should be created with more pauses in the talking and considering that you may need some time let the the information land into your brains. Yes, you can pause them, but that distracts even more from the content. Advanced topics are covered nowhere. Matt created some videos that are not bad regarding content, but way too long to view more than once and you cannot find information back again. I think a training video should be max 3 minutes and only cover one or two topics, e.g. one for cold boot, one for warm boot, one for driving and braking and maybe some for signalling. Training centre is nothing more than a nice looking place to collect them with the opportunity to do very limited freeroam driving. Clearly, training centre does not solve the documentation issue. To make it worse, TSW has lots of features that are never used in scenarios or in real life. It's a waste of our money in this way.
A couple of things I did notice: When Sam jumped into the static trains there was no tutorial....he had to know how to start them up. There seemed to be no super steep gradients. One thing I will point out though was Sam did walk into the shadows to see if there was any indication of adaptive lighting. Although I personally couldn't see any difference (I was looking before he mentioned what he was doing) due to the low quality of the stream, "subtle" was a positive response...but the real acid test as to whether this adaptive lighting is just a tunnel thing will come during a trip through the high-walled areas of SEHS at midday on a lovely sunny day.
I will walk for 5-10 minutes in this center and will not go there again. What for? What is there to do then? When it was being made, someone at DTG asked why? And again the whole stream, "we will add later" When later? How much can you promise
These new features will come in 3 years at minimum or never I get they needed to uncouple trains from routes but it really does seem that this test track center was a waste of time with how bare it is. This isn't a major feature of the game no matter how dovetail tries to spin it. The TS academy in TSC despite it's issues offered much more than this training center and there are some that concur that this center is pointless
