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Bregah

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Everything posted by Bregah

  1. I know, for a fact, you're making this up, as I was online the time you state (on Space Slug, the server I tried to reroll on, but ran out of fun. I was in vent on Saturday with my Razor guild, talking about server pops. The Razor hasn't hit heavy (that anyone who's been checking has noticed) this year. [url=http://www.torstatus.net/the-razor/history/7d][/url] http://www.torstatus.net/the-razor/history/7d Sort that list by population, and start around the middle of page 5, and see how many times those servers ever hit heavy. You'll find there are about 40 to 45 servers that in the past week have not hit heavy once, and more than a few that have not hit standard once. *If you didn't mention PST, I'd think you were talking about EU servers, but you're clearly not, because at 9pm PST it's like 5am in Europe.
  2. This is me, too. Lack of modern MMO features, which at this point in my gaming experience at the top is server transfers (to get off a dead server), is the reason I've unsubbed. I just suspect by the time these features are all implemented, I'll be enjoying one of the many 2012 releases I'm planning on buying, and the window of opportunity for me to be a long-term subscriber to this game will have passed. But I do know if none of these modern MMO features are added, I'll never be back.
  3. Meh, I just want to be on a non-dead server, be it merge or transfer, I don't care - but I'm not against either. With the answer in the Q&A giving no timeline other than "soon" for transfers, I take that to mean it wouldn't be by the end of the 2nd paid month (mid-March). For myself, a person who's played MMOs for years, but not "in love" with TOR, that likely means the window of opportunity to have me as a long-term customer has passed. There are a lot of issues with this game, but the one that sent me to the unsubscribe button (6 or so days remaining) was being on a dead server, and my reroll attempt that proved to me that this game isn't very repeatable when you feel "forced" to (by wanting to get my characters off a low pop server and being unable to). So I'm not subscribed for paid month #2. By the time paid month #3 rolls around, I'm sure I'll be playing Mass Effect 3 (or it will be very close to release). By the time I'm done with ME 3, I'm sure I'll be trying 13-2 (I know it's out now, but I haven't purchased it yet). At some point Diablo 3 and GW 2 are coming out this year. I can't see myself choosing to try TOR again over playing any of those games (and as I'm a recent PS3 purchaser, and played Demon's Souls only this past fall, I still have Dark Souls waiting). For people like me, the window of opportunity was about 2 months. In those 2 months I've yet to see the launch version of the game improved with any meaningful feature, but I've seen my "very heavy" on launch day server drop to low standard. I know very heavy on Dec 20 and very heavy today mean different things, but I didn't know that on Dec 20th. A merge or a free transfer before my sub ends would have kept me. It's clear it's not happening. Adios!
  4. Shotgun-clavy: When are character transfers going to become available? And are server transfers a real possibility? Daniel Erickson: Character transfers between servers are definitely going to be available in the future and we’ll announce details as soon as we have firm dates. Not the answer I want to hear, but at least someone from Bioware finally answered this question (that has been asked since before the official launch). Since there's no date (or even a vague date) on this or the dual spec question, I feel I've made the correct decision to unsubscribe. But I thank you guys for answering this question, finally.
  5. Read my whole post. I can 95% tell you if I'm on a winning or losing team (assuming everyone in the zone is trying) based on who's on each team. But I'm also on a low pop server. Again, read my whole post. I'm not saying I agree with what "he" does (as if you read my whole post you'll see my point of view on this on MY server only, which is my only experience in TOR), but right now the game does NOT punish him for leaving. Maybe it should (and I would agree that it should) or maybe how it is now is fine, but right now "how the game is intended to be played" is that there's no punishment for leaving a warzone, so why not leave?
  6. The fact that there is no penalty for leaving means that there's no reason not to, and Joe probably isn't wrong that his team will lose if they're 2-0 down after 5 minutes. On many servers (the low pop ones), you can tell who's going to win just by looking at the rosters. If you don't know it, you can do a /who The Pit and see every character your faction in the Huttball zone. On low pop servers, this number is never higher than 16 level 50's. You can look at all the players in the zone, and look at who's on your own side, and then deduce the other side. Like any server, low pop servers have their hardcore fully geared 4 man premades, and their people who PvP "casually" - meaning they do it to have fun and probably to complete the daily. If you know who the geared 24/7 pvpers are on your server, and you see they're all on the other team, you know you're going to lose. I'm sure that's what Joe is doing (anyways, I've only ever left 1 warzone. I waited 5 minutes and requeued and got the same team in the same huttball, and somehow we actually won, so I felt really bad about leaving and haven't done it since. that being said, I learned later that we won because the other team "let us". the single 4 man premade 50's in vent on my server found that if they won every single match, people stopped queuing and they didn't get ANY matches, so every third match they don't really try. I have also seen them offering to PAY level 50's to queue in /general on the Fleet when they feel they won't get their daily 3 wins because there's not enough queuers to get a warzone going. but that's life on a low pop server.)
  7. My deal breakers (and I've unsubbed, so my deal has been broken): 1 - Low population servers - and no way to get off of them except to reroll. 2 - Complete lack of features that MMOs released in 2011 should have (dual spec/useful LFG tool/modern UI, etc) 1 on top of 2 was enough for me to unsub - free transfers to high pop realms or a way to group with people on other servers would have me still being a subscriber. As for gameplay issues: 3 - PvP design is pretty bad - bordering on atrocious. 4 - Auction house needs a complete revamp. 5 - Crew skills (apart from Biochem) were useless at 50 at launch, and now Biochem has been nerfed down to where the rest are. There should be a reason for any skill to be useful at 50, not only during the level up process. 6 - Companions completely disappear (in a story sense) once you reach max affection with them, and simply become hunter pets that can craft/run missions. Companions (along with voiceovers) were the BIG INNOVATION that Bioware is offering with TOR, and both become completely non-existant at 50. This game IS WoW circa 2006/2007 with companions and voiceovers added. But at 50 it's just WoW circa 2006/2007. That's...not good. 7 - Orbital stations. There's more, but pretty much for me only 1 & 2 are deal-breakers (and mostly only when they both exist together, which they currently do). And they're deal-breakers enough that I have unsubscribed.
  8. I solved the problem myself by unsubbing. I have about 5 days left on my account, but have not logged in since last Sunday morning (I'm only posting from work because I have no work to do at 4:15 on a Friday afternoon, but I'm still getting paid). There are other reasons why I unsubbed, but the complete lack of fun rerolling (I have a 50 jugger tank and 30 healing sorc on a low pop server, and now a 15 jugger tank and 15 healing sorc on a high pop server) was the last straw that pushed it over the edge. I have no desire to play a non-lightsaber character, and I have no desire to play Republic, so these are the only 2 characters I actually want to play - so please don't tell me to play BH or IA or anything Republic. The reason re-rolling isn't fun is quite simple - there is only 1 quest path (not including your class quest). I've done every single player quest in the game (not including the planet quests on Corelia and some of the bonus series). None of them were memorable. So it was either stay on a low pop server or reroll, and I tried rerolling, and enjoyed Korriban again. But that was it. So I unsubbed. If there were free (or paid) transfers, or cross-server PvE queues, I doubt I would have cancelled. But I also never saw more than a 5v3 in the Ilum PvP area, and my low pop server likely will never have interesting battles on Ilum. I kind of wanted to see what mass PvP was like before I stopped, but I honestly can't see rerolling being at all fun (having re-leveled both classes to 15). Maybe the 10 questions that Bioware deigns to answer in their Q&A today will give hope, but the mere fact that they're only answering 10 tells me they really aren't interested in actually answering the community's questions, but are interested in a PR move that "demonstrates they listen to the community". Actually that's the primary reason I'm reading the forums today at work - secondary being I don't actually have any work to do - to see what questions they actually answer, and hoping they're questions that matter to me.
  9. Well, Bioware may feel the game is expanding, and perhaps it is. But there are more than a couple servers that are doing the opposite of expanding. And as there is no cross-server anything in this game, that's simply NOT GOOD for people on those not expanding servers. As a selfish gamer, I care most about whether what I'm doing is "fun". Playing on a low pop server (and standard has a HUGE range - just because a server is listed as "standard" does not at all mean there's even enough people to do a single level 50 warzone) is not fun. Rerolling and redoing everything again is not fun. Unsubscribing is "less not fun" than either of the other 2 options.
  10. Yeah, people who say "there's no problem" because their own server isn't low pop don't understand that many people (myself included) choose option 3 from those above. I tried option 2, but after 3 days I realized I didn't want to do the same things again, and just took #3. I seriously doubt I'm the ONLY person to choose 3.
  11. Well I took being on a low pop server, and no info from Bioware on transfers/merges as a sign that I didn't want to play a dead MMO. What I mean by that is that no matter how populated the game may be, if the server you are on is low pop, the game is, to you, low pop. I tried rerolling on a heavy pop server. So much better. But I only got to 15 before I realized I wasn't having any fun rerolling (and wasn't having any fun at 50 on a low pop server), so simply unsubscribed. I have like 5 days left on my subscription. If, a week ago, I had been able to transfer my 50 and 30 to a heavy pop server, I wouldn't have unsubscribed. I would have even paid money to transfer them. But the only 2 options I had (continue on a low pop server or reroll and redo everything on a heavy pop server) weren't appealing enough to me to keep my subscription. Obviously the low pop server wasn't the ONLY issue I have with the game, but it was the tipping point. Bioware simply should have been prepared for this, and they aren't, and is on the long list of things they seemingly haven't learned from other MMOs.
  12. I didn't unsub because of the awful PvP system here (though it IS awful), but I have unsubbed (being stuck on a low pop server with no hope of that changing, and finding that the content isn't really good enough to do all over again on a heavy pop server made my decision for me. But the reasons I think the "PvP sucks" here in TOR is because it is not at all innovative. It relies on PvP gear (which in every MMO that has PvP gear, a big chunk of active PvPers have always hated because they think, like I do, that PvP should be skill v skill, not gear v gear - which is just a translation of how much time you've put in) to keep you playing. That gear grind, alone, stops many people from participating due to the "new level cap fodder" syndrome. That syndrome is actually worse in TOR because they don't offer any sort of crafted gear at all. Add in that the initial system made it much too slow to get tier 1 pvp gear, to the point that it was faster to gear tier 2 first, even though they are awful RNG bag drops, means that someone at Bioware didn't do any number crunching to figure that out (took them 6 weeks to alter that?). I would like to talk about Ilum, but I never saw more than 5v3 on my dead server. And even that lagged the hell out of me. I did see 7v0 crate farming a LOT, though. Joyness. But the complete lack of planning for unbalanced factions meant Ilum, even if it performed well, was always going to be bad. The fact that it doesn't perform well and promoted objective trading from day 1 meant that the designers did a very poor job of designing the only open world pvp area in the game (for those not on PvP servers). I didn't unsub because of the awful PvP systems, but the system here is worse than WoW's, Rift's or Warhammer's, and apart from Huttball being possibly same-faction, there's not a single innovation in the system. That's pretty hard to accomplish, but they did it!
  13. WoW is WoW, yes. SWTOR is WoW circa 2006 or 2007 (probably when the design docs for SWTOR were being written - that's why there are pretty much no features that other MMOs have developed since that time in SWTOR). The only real difference is lighstabers and blaster pistols.
  14. This is one thing I don't quite understand about servers and the "modern era". I never played Eve, but I know they have 1 server, and regularly have 30k + concurrent online players. Guild Wars is a 100% instanced game, even so much as instancing main cities. TOR seems to have had an opportunity (if they would have been innovative) to have very few, or even 1 per playstyle (PvE, PvP, RP PvE, RP PvP) servers. We are on the FLEET. Why is there only 1 ship we can land on..on the fleet? Everywhere else we go, we get instanced, or if a particular planet hits a certain point, there's another version of it created (so you can have Balmorra 1 and Balmorra 2 in the current game, for example). Why not just make 1 (or 4, in the case of the different playstyles) server, and have multiple ships in the Fleet? Say there are, currently, 200 servers - just a guess. I know that you can have 200 on one Fleet right now (and probably more), but most servers don't have that many (and many have under 50 in their prime time). Just combine all "servers" into one server, but have multiple named Capitol Ships that you pick one to "call home". Have however many capitol ships you need so one single one never crashes, and don't have the chat cross each, but allow people the opportunity to change their home base. So, for example, a guild may form, and choose "The Defiant" as the fleet ship they meet on, and mark that as "home". But they actually would be able to travel from one ship in the fleet to another to recruit, or whatever, but would have to travel there in-game to use that chat (you could only use the chat on the ship you were on). Each ship in the fleet would be LIKE a server, but they'd not be 100% separate. I'm sure there's many more details that need worked out, and I'm also sure the Hero Engine would struggle with something so radical, but you'd, basically, eliminate low pop servers.
  15. You know, I tried this. I was on The Razor - level 50 jugg tank and 30 sorc heals. Dying server. Rerolled on Space Slug (has about 6 to 8 times the level 50 population as The Razor). Got to level 15 and realized - this game isn't fun enough to do the same thing all over again, so I unsubscribed. I'll be following the game for a while, but with so many other games coming out I want to play, I just suspect TOR missed it's window of opportunity on me to make me a long-time consumer. If this game, CURRENTLY, had dual specs, LFD tool (cross server, because my orginal server has had, in prime time, ONE level 50 healer online at least 1 time in the past 2 weeks, with around 47 total 50's - but ONE healer!) and/or free server transfers, I most likely wouldn't have unsubscribed. But I have seen nothing from Bioware on any of these 3 things, so figured why waste my time on a low pop server, and...the game just isn't good enough to redo (at this point).
  16. Serious answer - I would put it down to a poor engine. Now I'm not an expert, but the exact same computer that played Rift at launch on full settings, and only got lag when like 40 or 50 people were at a rift even (and by lag I mean 15 FPS) gets 15 FPS the instant I pop into a warzone on pretty low settings (shadows off, the only thing of the top of my head I don't have a minimum is character detail, but low res textures, etc). Put 15 people at a quest hub and insta-15 FPS. I never had any issues in 4 mans or 8 mans, but I'm guessing somewhere beyond 10 players the engine just sort of takes a crap. Why, I don't know. My CPU and RAM never once hit 100% usage while playing TOR, and of those 2 and my graphics card, my graphics card is the highest spec of the 3. I'm sure the ability delay is all to do with the engine, and I know the animation vs execution time has to do with the engine. I do wonder, if this game really has been in development for the reported 5 years - how did this engine perform the day they signed up to use it? I can't imagine a 5 year old computer playing this game remotely well, so what were those early tests like? Anyways, I suspect this game is instanced so much simply because it had to be for performance issues - due to a poor game engine. Now as to why there are even Orbital Station instances...
  17. Ok, first, I know that pretty much no one that reads these forums cares that I unsubscribed (unless someone from Bioware happens across this post), so I expect comments that point that out. Whatever. Like many, I was looking foward to TOR, being an MMO, being from Bioware (I'm a fanboy and own every game they've released since Baldur's Gate 1), and being Star Wars. At this point I can only say that I had fun in-game for about a month, and then noticed there wasn't anything "new" in this game (at level cap), and what WAS at level cap was just watered down lesser versions of other games' end-game. The Pros of this game are that it's the best single player questing experience "in an MMO" that I've come across. Unfortunately that ends 100% when you hit 50/finish class quest and Corelia. But I didn't find that single player questing experience to be "good enough" to justify leveling alts "out in the world", and surely not good enough to reroll (which I tried to do). In other words, it's a good single player experience "for an MMO", but not really a good single player experience "for an RPG". The MMO part is...very substandard. It's functional, just not very good. The "MMO part" is what I would describe as "playing the game". Inventory screens, abilities, doing group quests/instances (including finding groups), the gearing up systems at 50, etc. The stuff that doesn't include the story, pretty much. The MMO part of this game feels very much circa 2006. I don't want to dwell on it too much, but lack of dual specs and a useful LFG tool (I happen to think WoW got BETTER when they added LFD - my chat cleared of the LF1M spam!), and a UI that's worse than EQ2's was at launch (in late 2004) are obvious features that are lacking (and to some extent expected in 2011). 2 windows max open, my companions returning and closing all my windows no matter what I'm doing/have open (window popping up during a raid boss fight, wth?). One aspect I was looking forward to were the companions, as Bioware has a history of doing dialogue better than most other developers (in single player games). For the most part, they're done really well up to level cap. My only experience is with Juggernaut to 50 and Sorc to 30, but I have to say I was disappointed that once you max someone's affection at 10000, that's it. Nothing more. Why not put in 2 player instances that "require" 4 players, so that both people are forced to use companions - make them part of the end-game in some way? Put more story to them, so that at 50, each companion has a daily (or weekly) that requires you to do something? Innovate in some way. Maybe even make a solo instance that requires you to use 3 (or more!) of your own companions to get through. Something to make them useful in any aspect, at 50, other than crafting/gathering bots or a dps/tank/heal pet to help you solo your dailies. In the end, the companions are humanoid pets, ultimately, even the ones you "marry". (and don't get me started on the one companion in the Sith Warrior quest that, if the story was written by 90% of the players, would have been killed by those players for what that companion does during the story - no true Sith would have let that companion live). To touch on PvP...to sum up - this is the worst PvP system I've ever encountered in an MMO. Apart from Huttball being a same-faction possible warzone, seemingly nothing was done to account for the so blatantly obvious incoming faction imbalance. PvP gear (with a PvP stat) seems to be now the accepted method (however many people who enjoy PvP think it should go away), but the RNG aspect of gearing has to be one of the worst decisions I've seen in a PvP gearing system. Add in the untested fixes, and low population servers, and Ilum is, for most people, well, nothing. I think, with regards to PvP, many people want something as good as what Wow offers, but different. Something other than a gear grind, something that matters in the open world, something that's not WoW's system, but worse and more broken (which was what Rift offers, as well). Ultimately, though, the reason I have unsubscribed is being stuck on a low population server, and having no indication from Bioware that this will change. I tried to reroll, and found a heavy pop server. If I could stomach redoing everything (I can't - this game isn't good enough, IMO, to redo what I've already done), being on a heavy pop server may allow me to continue. Leveling up my 1st character, I missed so much content because of the sharding, the lack of even a server-only useful LFG tool, and lack of other players. Once I hit 50, it was much the same. I tried to reroll my 50 and 30 (jugg and sorc), but only got to 15 and 15 before I realized redoing it wasn't worth my time. I don't want to see the Republic side stories, and since I've done all the solo quests on the Empire side, while I wouldn't mind seeing the class quest lines, having to do either warzones or the planetary quests AGAIN in order to see class quests to the end is..not exciting. Overall, I wish Bioware had innovated in some way. The game comes off as they did their best to put what they do well (single player experience) into a 2006 era MMO. I'd much rather play either a good single player game, or a 2011 era MMO than this, which means that while I have unsubscribed, I will be playing Mass Effect 3 and also Guild Wars 2. For those of you sticking with it, I hope major improvements are made. If they're made soon, I may consider coming back.
  18. "You have 11 days left on your subscription."
  19. Well I did. I have 12 days left on my subscription now. I would have earlier, but while I was able to post at work, when I went to "my account", it asked for my auth #, so had to wait. But yeah, rerolling sucks. I have a 50 jug tank and 30 sorc heals on The Razor. The Razor is awful in terms of population (though it's "standard"). I rerolled a jug and sorc on Space Slug. Amazing population! Got each to 15, but then just simply realized that this game isn't good enough to do things twice. I did every single solo quest on that Juggernaut (bar Corelia and some of the bonus series), and apart from my class quest, nothing was memorable. Non-class quests for any Empire toon will be exactly the same, and, well, they weren't THAT fun.
  20. I doubt they answer any question with any sort of definite answer. Bioware would be better served to just actually answer the questions as they come up, instead of soliciting hundreds of questions and doing an "event" for publicity. Some of the questions have been unanswered since beta, and at least since day 1 or 2 of launch, and have yet to be addressed on these forums.
  21. There's also a huge number from low standard to high standard. What the range is, I don't know, but the "standard" server I left was an East Coast one, where at 8:30pm EST on any given day would have 55-60 level 50's online. I know other "standard" servers would have half that. I re-rolled toons on a West Coast server, and at 8:30 AM (not PM) west coast time (11:30 am EST), this server would be bordering between Standard and Heavy (this was a weekend - this past Saturday), and the number of 50's was in the 250 range. I judge servers by the number of 50's, because on my "old" server I had a level 50 jugger tank, and liked to PvP (but not hardcore about it, especially with how this game's PvP is set up). My old standard server would, during prime time, have 1 to 2 hour waits some nights for a queue to pop. And I never saw a battle on Ilum greater than 5v3, nor more than 16 people total (empire) on the planet at once. This new server I rolled on - during East Coast prime time (on a West Coast server) - would have easily 60 level 50's in warzones, and 50+ level 50's on Ilum. And that's not even talking about when it hit West Coast prime time and hit very heavy per the server status page. Low pop servers are not fun, espeically when it's 10:30pm EST on an East Coast server, and there are 47 level 50's on, but only ONE healer.
  22. Actually, yes, I do pay attention to that stuff. The last patch - notes said the warfront quest bug fixed. Within 30 minutes of the servers coming up people started reporting it NOT fixed (since it wasn't). It took them 36 hours to reply that "the note was a mistake". Oh, and the performance blog they took over a week to "formulate"? Basic settings tweaks that anyone with the ability to open the performance settings tab already knew, and boiled down to "your CPU isn't good enough to handle this game", when my own CPU NEVER gets to 100% usage while playing, my RAM never goes full 100% full, and my graphics card doesn't either. Oh, and for you who say there's no need for an LFG tool or dual specs - play on a dead server, where you could (as of a week ago) be online and there be exactly ONE level 50 healer online. But meh, no need, right?
  23. I think back to my (brief) time in Rift, and how the devs really seemed on the ball in at least addressing the community's concerns. I don't feel the devs here really care much about the community's concerns. I'm sure they do, but I don't really see the evidence that they do. My personal main conerns are low pop servers (as someone who has a 50 and a 30 on a low pop server that seems to be getting smaller), the 2006-era UI, lack of dual specs and lack of any sort of useful LFG tools. Oh, and perhaps the worst PvP system I've ever seen in an MMO. Not high on my list are bug fixes, because bugs happen. Of course I want them fixed, but I'd actually like the core game to be better (ability delay and the awful "new" cooldown graphic that STILL has me not knowing if my 1 minute CDs are up yet). I've rerolled both classes on a very populated server, and I have to say that the experience is a crap-ton better. But I also realized that I'm annoyed enough with various parts of the game that I really, REALLY don't want to redo what I've already done. I also don't want to play on a low pop server (and while low, The Razor is far from the lowest). What I really wanted was to play an MMO with loads of other people. Unfortunately that "Very Heavy" server I picked on launch day turned out to be a dud. I guess that would be bearable if there were any light at the end of the tunnel with regards to merges/free transfers off low servers, but not a word from a dev (at least on these forums). I would have liked to have experienced PvP on Ilum in a scale a little bit larger than the 5v3 I've seen, but I've only got to grind 35 more levels on my new server to get to that point. I don't think I'll make it before that 1st paid month is over.
  24. I'm still playing, and having fun (although I had to reroll on a higher pop server to feel like I was playing an MMO - there are some dead and dying servers out there), so I don't plan on leaving just yet. That being said, there IS less freedom here than other MMOs (not ALL others, but some). There's only 1 questing path to max level, and it's about 75% or so identical for EVERY character on a faction. But that's just the nature of any static world, which TOR is set in. None of our choices ultimately matter, and none of the questing matters once you're at 50. It's been the same in pretty much every other MMO for years, and it's no different here. The quests here, IMO, while being MUCH better done than any other MMO I've ever played, aren't any more important, beyond the fun you have doing them. No decision you made along the way matters once you're 50, except if you're Light or Dark (the only real "faction" you can grind in the game). I'm not at all saying the story is bad, but that it's ultimately unimportant (the single player leveling up story) once you're 50. No decision I made on my 50 juggernaut can be accounted for in group or op stuff, because I might be grouped with another 50 juggernaut who made the exact opposite choices, so how can a group quest be crafted around one result or another? Sure, those decisions can carry over to an expansion, but that will again be the solo class quests. It's like decisions in Mass Effect 1 and 2 - none of them can be big (except the ONE big decision that you have to make, that Bioware planned for - I won't spoil it) because Mass Effect 2 and Mass Effect 3 have to start at some sort of base, and they don't want to make content that may or may not be seen because of decisions. Most of the ME 1 decisions are reflected in ME 2 by a line or 2 of dialogue, and that's it. It's much the same here. How would you carry the story over to ops if, for example, your Ops group had a light side and dark side version each of Warrior, Inquisitor, Agent and Bounty Hunter? You really can't, and have it make any sense.
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