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Okay, I've been playing SWG since June, when it was officially released and I have a few gripes, comments, questions about it.

For anyone else here on MW that plays the game, do you all see this as being possibly the most one-sided MMORPG ever or am I just being too damned picky?

I started out as an artisan in hope of working my way up to Droid Engineer...and quickly found out that I picked the most broken and passed-over profession ever. DE is one of the slowest and most resource-intensive professions to gain XP (experience points) in. All droids pretty much do the same thing in the game, no matter what type of droid it is. An R5 unit serves the very same function as a much more expensive Threepio protocol droid! The only difference is in appearance and price. Both droids hold the same types of modules (medical, item storage, data, etc.) and aren't specialized at all. :huh:

On the other hand, all "combat-class" professions (marksman, creature handler, scout, bounty hunter, commando etc.) are given huge amounts of XP for doing relatively little (blow something up or kill something).

The game is patched about every 3 to 4 days with weapon or armor improvements, but hardly anything is even remotely planned to fix the non-combat professions. :(

And the game developers themselves seem to listen to the players who prefer warrior-type characters more than any other group in the game.

Here's a prime example: Droid Engineers were planned to have Droidekas, B2 Battle Droids (Roger, roger droids) and IG-88 assassin droids added in a few months...but Creature Handlers were outraged over these upcoming additions. They claimed that by adding heavy combat droids to the game, it would kill the market for high-level creatures in the game.

Their argument was that a CH has to earn a certain amount of XP to be able to tame higher-level creatures like Dewbacks or Rancors. A total NOOB with enough cash could just go to a vendor and buy a droideka with just as much attack power as a full-grown Rancor.

Bottom line: the devs scrapped the combat droid idea. Fair? No. Frustrating? Yes! :angry: There is currently no market in SWG for droids as they stand right now.

Several people have also complained that the game simply moves too slow for their tastes. SWG is basically "The Sims: Star Wars" It's completely open-ended and there is no level-progression like in Jedi Academy or X-Wing Alliance. This leaves several players with a "Okay, I'm done with my faction missions; what do I do now?" feeling.

With the tremendous unbalancing of the game mechanics, game bugs, endless resource gathering and the huge amount of people closing their accounts, I dunno if this game will last nearly as long as LucasArts or SOE had planned for it to. The planned "Space" expansion pack has already been postponed until around Summer of 2004 (it was supposed to be ready by January 2004), but I've learned not to get my hopes up about any part of this game anymore.

Okay, I'm done with my rant. Just needed to get out a little of my frustrations over this game. And the sick thing is I keep playing it, hoping that I'll finally see some light at the end of the tunnel in terms of improvements. :rolleyes:

Ben

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I hear you!!

My biggest gripe with SWG is that theres no point to it. How much longer will I need to keep doing stupid destroy missions before I hit some interesting things to do in this game?

I keep hearing about "deeper" content, but how am I supposed to go about finding them if I have to worry about money every other minute? And gee.... 70k xp to master the last 4 skills of a profession is a bit much, no? :angry:

Don't even get me started on this nasty bug it has that keeps causing my PC to crash and that has the devs scratching their heads. :angry:

The planned "Space" expansion pack has already been postponed until around Summer of 2004 (it was supposed to be ready by January 2004), but I've learned not to get my hopes up about any part of this game anymore.

Thats it!! This game is defenetly out of my HD!! :angry:

Edited by Abombz!!
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I enjoy SWG. I'm willing to hold out for it to be better.

But I will say this, it's not as fun without someone you know doing it with you, especially if you are trying to truly roleplay.

Really role playing in the game is a ton of fun though... There's too many people not playing it like they should IMO.

(edit: changed point of post)

Vostok 7

Edited by Vostok 7
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What do you expect. Its from the same group, division that created Everquest aka Neverquest. While it might not have been done by the same exact people they same thought process is there. Very slow advancement, make money impossible to get, screw over certain classes in favor for others, no real purpose to the game(no real goal to reach for unlike AO, DAoC, UXO(soon to be released next year). After all the stories I've heard I'm glad I stayed away from this game. I was going to give it a chance but I might wait a few more months still, by then the price for the game would have dropped and a lot of bugs would have been worked out.

I last heard that this game should never have been released when it did, that the first month was basicly still beta. Granted it wasn't as bad as Anarchy Online when that was release. Horrible but not its one of the best mmorpg ever, well it would be if the equipment system wasn't so screwed up, thus causing the monster diffculty to be increase, etc. Endless cycle.

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Man! Thanks for reminding me to cancel my account! I haven't played since the first day I tried it and had completely lost track of time.

I don't want to rip on it just because it's not my cup of tea, but I had got KotOR in the same package and well...

Then, after I finished that, I completely forgot I had Galaxies sitting on my HD. Doh!

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Hence continues the utter pointlessness of all these Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games. Whether it's Everquest, Star Wars Galaxies, or whatever, these games are so dull, so slow to progress, and so time consuming they cease to be fun long before you even get to a point where you realize there is no point.

I can still recall my first experience with one of these games, that aptly maligned "Neverquest" (true name Everquest). My best friend was crazy over RPGs and wanted me to purchase Everquest as well so we could adventure together. I spent an entire Saturday over at his place just watching him play the game and playing the game myself, trying to decide if I wanted to take the plunge. I couldn't beleive what a stupidly turtle slow game it was with little if any reward for playing. I told him I coulnd't be any less interested in playing that crap. The time it takes me to just enjoy one game of that MMORPG, I could have played two to three truely FUN games. Having fun...what a concept!

I'll pay for Homeworld 2, Half-Life 2, or Jedi Academy over these stupid MMORPGs and have a lot more fun playing them. If I ever want to play a deep RPG or strategy game, there's always Fallout or Master of Orion I and II.

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I bought it but never got around to registering. Ostensibily, I was waiting for the starships add-on. But now I'll wait to see if it survives to the starships. :) Plus now that I've beat both KotoR and Jedi Academy, I'm really detesting the rpg based stuff. The class-like selection stuff Siege for the latter really makes me wish Galaxies (KotoR especially) would use that instead, but I know that's not gonna happen. Ah well.

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The real problem is they stuck it in a time period where not much can change. The Rebels cannot beat the Imperials, and vice versa... you are stuck in a state of constant war. They would have been better of putting it in a setting where you can have major changes to the game's playing environment.

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They would have been better of putting it in a setting where you can have major changes to the game's playing environment.

You mean like Earth & Beyond?

I mean it is sometimes repetitive, a bit boring, and a bit slow to progress,

but its classes and level progression are pretty balanced.

You can gain levels and new equipment at the same speed as other players, no matter what their specialty, and each playable ship can contribute something to formations and clans.

The story is constantly evolving, and is effected by both the players and the developers.

Theres always something different happening in each solar system and their different planets and sectors.

Currently theres a full scale war between the three main player races and a fourth alien race.

Too bad I ran out of funds and can't play it anymore....

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ok heres my quick view ...

As a player of both everquest and swg i love both

No point? of course theres no point......except to have fun..they are games.. ok swg first

I think the main problem isnt any developer /bugs etc...yes they are there ..yes its horribly unbalanced right now. I understand yoru pain my main character on eclipse server "shadowplay darkstar" is a droid engineer / pistoleer. It is very true that de need to be fixed BAD and it will...at the same time CH need to be nerfed BAD it will happen. New droids will be added eventually......pilots will want r2 units...player cities will want security droids ...new types of buildings ships will be need droids for....also i have a strong feeling de will lead into vehicle design and sub professions leading to it.....anyway

SWG is a roleplaying game that was made for roleplayers and i mean for the most part hardcore rpg though theres a balance there.....the problem is 80% of the people playing dont like to roleplay they are from loot charged school of online gaming ...these people never played pen and paper...or really roleplayed they are driven by big killings and getting the next loot.

Swg wasnt made that way...there is no uber loot ...there are no big bosses for the most part. These people are finding nothing left to do once they are done duping resources making tons of cash and finding every bug they can to master their classes...which once mastered they have nothing left to do.....they are either getting bored and leaving or hanging out and whining.

This causes a huge problem for roleplayers as you want to roleplay in teh star wars universe.....is walking around and seeing "iwantto kickyourbutt" walking around yelling "Yo lets pwnoage the RoXors" and other stupid lingo. This becomes highly annoying but im doing my best to completely ignore it and when i do finally run into a roleplayer i have TONS of fun.

Things will change ..the swg universe isnt going away anytime soon....i think the game is going to start catering to the roleplayer more and more..why? because the roleplayer is what will be left. Player cities is already a large step in teh right direction....cities will be governed by elected officials.....work together ...secured....battled ......i think there will eventually be more tools to make player made missions and scenarios..by the way devs talk this eems to be there plan and i love the idea.

One of my favorite moments was walking the desert from bestine and coming across jabbas palace for the first time...it was immense and the suns were just starting to set. I had a whole rpg scenario set up with it that i would invite anyone around me to get involved with . Its just a shame half were baffled.

As for EQ ...i always hear people moan about EQ...iv played EQ for over a year and a half now . I love it. Its NOT a roleplaying game...its an adventure game and thats what people need to understand...yes the grind in it can be bad ESPECIALLY past lvl 51-60 ....and i beleive the best way to gain xp would be mission character way ..but thats just me.

Anyway people who usually complain about the game sucking , complain because they cant find people to play with or the time and yes the game is time intensive ( the complete opposite of swg ). and LFG still remains a problem......the best thing you can do really is find a good guild and join it. Once you do have friends to play with though ...the game can be loads of fun....nothing quite like using great class based strategies to take down a hard boss. Another thing is while teh classes are still pretty badly unba;lanced...my main is a warrior trust me i know....when you are in a grp or in a raid they are all perfectedly balanced.

The higher up you get the more strategy between classes is used to take down mobs and bosses and crawl dungeuns or do cycles and rings. Every group or guild will come up with their own strategy to defeating these challenges depending whose there.

Right now my main char is a lvl 65 wood elf warrior...basically the highest you can get in eq minus the alternative advancement points which you can do at yoru own leisure after you hit 65 and basically make your char incredibly strong ( working on my aa now...iv got a pretty good number). My guild is very high up on the server and we have gotten to see things most people never will in teh game....we are in the elemental planes now ....the highest of the planes of the gods you can get. We are taking down gods now and working our way to the plane of time ( which only a handful of people on any server have ever gotten into) its pretty much the highest of the high you can get in game. The rings required to spawn gods and the strategies needed to take em down are sometimes immense and only a really good guild leader can even begin to get guilds organized for this stuff. It is HUGE fun when it all comes together .

Anyone here play eq...if you do heres a godo example...taking down the god rallos zek ..the god of war....

you have to first fight through ... mez a named ogre...have him follow you ..bring him to anotehr named ogre..mez him...clear the area og mobs....break mez on named ogre one ..kill and repeat with two... this spawns the god tallon zek...who shoots a giant arrows which does massive damage to anyone in its path so he must be completely agroed by teh main tank...after tallon dies his brother vallon appears and as his health drains procedes to split in two and then three...thats where extra offtanks come in ( go me ! ) .... after vallon goes down ...rallos zek pops... but theres a key..hes a fake ...at fifty percent health he vanishes. Then you have 15 minutes to get back to the begining of teh zone get into the arena area and engage him. The way we do this is by binding our chars to right outside the zone....and having a wizard cast translocate when fake rz is at 70% health. At thezone in we buff up rez up and head down to the arena but the fun doesnt end there...the real rallos zek has an area effect dot which can wipe out most casters and many melee in less then a minute if they get too close so everyone has to be in perfect range and healers have to be in perfect rotation....oh and to make it even more fun... at 10% health loss rz spawns one by one up to 50 mobs...all lvl 65 IN THE ARENA! ....these have to simutaniously be handled by kiters liek rangers bards and druids who can have them give chase.....which would be easy if the mobs didnt run faster then them ! Or teh way i saved the clerics .. while they were being attacked...hit area taunt BOOM they are now after me...i died of course but saved clerics another 20 seconds heal time ....FUN

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There's been alot of discussion over at the Middle-Earth Online message board about how the MEO Dev Team can avoid the trap of making either an EverCrack clone or the endless futility of SWG. Alot of people, myself included, dont want a game where you have Orcs dropping mithril ingots or Elven Swords of Gondolin. We also dont want a game that has no point to the economy. The endless succession of beating up Orcs, looting them and then going back to town needs to stop. Im fearful because the Devs dont seem to understand that fully articulated plate armor is way beyond the technology of Middle-Earth.

As for the Droid Engineers.....Im sad to hear that. Seems someone at Sony had their head up their arse to make an R5 Droid and a Protocol Droid essentially the same droid...just different looking. Not like that kind of stupidity hasnt happened before. I had thought about getting SWG and opening an account. Im gonna have to wait and see I guess.

For some horror....this is a piece that the Dev team at MEO submitted for the Elves (Im guessing Noldor)

concept3.jpg

Is it me...or do they look like Sidhe from Changeling: the Dreaming?

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Yikes! that picture is horrid!

I mean, the art itself is good, but it's not Middle Earth.

It looks like a bastage child of Peter Jackson's elf armor on a generic "trying-to-straddle-the-Japan-and American-market" RPG for PS2.

Not that it perfectly matches my image of Middle Earth, but you'd think they'd try to stick close to the recent movie's vision, at least as that's currently what's fresh in people's minds. They could do that one better by toning it down a bit from the movie's vision and really pouring on the Alan Lee style. As it is now though, man... I'm just not feeling it.

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I already canceled my account a month ago (only a day or two after being billed another month), and I haven't gone back since. The game has a lot of potential, but it's suffering from a lack of vision, and silly nerfs meant to bring the game inline for the PvPers regardless of how it affects the non-PvP crowd.

I gave it a chance, and stuck with it for a few months because it was a Star Wars game and I hated to see it fail, but it eventually got too crappy for me to even care to login. For awhile it was really fun, but there were too many nerfs made to make what little content was there more challenging rather than adding stuff in at the top end. Once I became a BH and did a few missions, I couldn't bring myself to log in for hours just to run the same tired destroy missions. Maybe if there was more leveling, that would keep me around, but grinding for the sake of grinding isn't much fun in the long run, either.

Now that the forums are closed, it'll be difficult to keep as much of an eye on it as I was, but I might stop by and check it out in another 6 months or so. To be honest, I'm not expecting much to improve. The devs are focused on appeasing PvP whiners and not focused enough on fixing classes, or the plethora of bugs that exist. I dont' see that they have the vision to turn the game around and provide the content that's going to keep players coming back. Towards the last month I was there, I'll have to say that the customer service was improving somewhat, or at least the dev communication was.

As Duke said, the time period it's set in is also bad. If the PvP war mattered, and if the political make-up could change, that would make it far more fun. Right now, it just seemed to me like Quake deathmatch filled by adolescent "griefers". Bleh.

SOE really screwed the pooch on this one.

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Setting... I think the TotJ or KotoR settings would have been much better for SWG. Or maybe the NJO. That could be interesting!

Definately having some sort of larger overall story arc, something that elite players could actually influence maybe, would be cool. Let each server spin off away from official EU and canon in whatever ways are logical. Then that opens some sort of sliders possibility, perhaps. Linking each server through a limited means of transport/transfer.

I actually was disapointed in the cloning/spawning business. I would like a game to actually have characters be D-I-E and force people to make new characters if they enter combat rashly. Force people to be either conservative and cautious, or brave and short-lived. :-) But that's neither here nor there.

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Got tired of SWG. Tried to migrate skill points and my character got so bad that now I can't even kill a creature without being incapacitated at least twice. <_<

And damn... why are carbines so bad? Leg shot is so health consuming that is not even worth using. And overcharged shot eats through a weapons "health" like ants eat through sugar. <_<

SWG had so much potential.... even role playing, the game is boring. <_<

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The PvP thing is part of the problem. While I like PvP as much as the next person, not pking. Player vs Environment and Player vs Player work differently. Games seem to be work great on a PvE scale but when you start making changes so things balance out on PvP everything just goes in the crapper.

Hmm granted a lot people dislike Everquest and others do. Me I played off and on for several years until I finally became fed up with it. The problem with Everquest I've noticed if that they constantly think of the higher level and powergamer first and the casual and lower levels as after thoughts. Notice all the exspanison. Its all content aimed at higher level players. Mean while, if you don't have a lot of time or know someone in the game, it will frustrating starting out as a newbie, especially when everyone around you is wearing equipment that was passed down from their higher level characters. Everquest may still be one top with the most people but their are a good deal of people with more then on account, more then two at times. I wonder why they removed the server count a few years. Numbers were starting to drop I think.

I agree had the SWG taken place during Tales of the Jedi or the Knights of the Old Republic they wouln't be so limited in what they could do. Poo on the NJO. ;) Or better yet they might have been better off having the SWG universe as an AU. Rewrite the story of Star Wars with the events outcoming in the way they wanted. That would make things interesting and surprise some people. The game has potential like everything else, its what you do with that, that matters. Its clear the game was rushed, it seems what they really care about and know what's going to bring the money in, Everquest 2. Star Wars be damned. SWG just might be a test run for the ideas they are going to try in EQ2. I wouldn't be surprised if that was held back till they were sure it was ready.

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...there is no uber loot ...there are no big bosses for the most part. These people are finding nothing left to do once they are done duping resources making tons of cash and finding every bug they can to master their classes...which once mastered they have nothing left to do.....they are either getting bored and leaving or hanging out and whining.

This causes a huge problem for roleplayers as you want to roleplay in teh star wars universe.....is walking around and seeing "iwantto kickyourbutt" walking around yelling "Yo lets pwnoage the RoXors" and other stupid lingo. This becomes highly annoying but im doing my best to completely ignore it and when i do finally run into a roleplayer i have TONS of fun.

I play on the Naritus server...and although PKing has been done away with in SWG in the "traditional" method (simply walk up to a NOOB and beat the hell out of him/her, then loot the corpse), players have found ways to ruin the RP experience through exploiting faction missions.

When you run an Imperial or Rebel faction mission, it automatically gives your character a Temporary Enemy Flag (TEF), making you susceptible to attack by opposing faction players or NPCs. The Rebel players (especially the RAID guild) have now taken to camping at Imperial mission terminals, and ganging up on unsuspecting Imperials who want nothing more than PvE missions. I've lost countless Stormtroopers this way...after earning all the faction points to hire/purchase them. So I finally just gave up on running Imperial missions altogether after having this happen about 7 times in a row. It gets old hearing these Rebel players stand over you yelling "RAID ownz u!"

Also, the Rebels on Tatooine in Anchorhead and around Bestine are definitely only in this game for the PKing and looting. They act like punks while in town, trying to pick fights with every covert Imperial they can. And the average player, sadly, can't tell the difference between a Bantha and a Rancor (in terms of how they fit into the SW universe). I've been "in character" while trying to converse with other players only to have them stare at me and say, "WTF, dude? I have no idea what ur talking about." But these same people chat back and forth with each other in almost purely internet lingo...which ruins the immersion that the game is supposed to provide players.

And don't even get me started on the player-driven economy. On the Naritus server, players have price-gouged items until a NOOB really can't afford anything worth using. I mean, why does a weaponsmith feel the need to charge 350k for a T-21 rifle? Outside of outright greed, I mean.

Me and another Droid Engineer out of Mos Espa got together and started selling our droids at prices far less than other DEs (8k for an advanced protocol droid, for example). After about 2 weeks, our business was booming...even if the droids are fairly worthless, they are novelties that people will buy for low prices.

We both got the "Harmony Gold" treatment...literally. Several other DEs around Tatooine and one on Corellia sent us rather nasty "Cease & Desist" emails within the game, citing that we were maliciously undermining the economy by charging such low prices (making it impossible for them to sell their 45k droids). :rolleyes:

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I think the online gaming commuunity in general needs to face one simple, immutable fact; No matter what game you're playing, there's always going to be one group of players who play the game simply to f*ck you up. Sadly, there's no way to keep these people out unless you stick to a LAN game, which pretty much defeats the point of an MMRP. :angry:

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Got tired of SWG. Tried to migrate skill points and my character got so bad that now I can't even kill a creature without being incapacitated at least twice. <_<

And damn... why are carbines so bad? Leg shot is so health consuming that is not even worth using. And overcharged shot eats through a weapons "health" like ants eat through sugar. <_<

SWG had so much potential.... even role playing, the game is boring. <_<

Damn straight. The weapon ranges really need to be fixed. And well...the whole HAM system needs a lot of work. Hunting marks was crazy when I would need to constantly heal myself just to undo the damage my damn carbine was doing. About the only thing I used carbine for was one KD, which usually wouldn't even work, before I switched to pistol and spammed whatever one good shot I had. Which I really hated doing, as I prefer that playing the game took more thought than that. Especially when you get all of those new specials as you progress.

The PvP thing is part of the problem. While I like PvP as much as the next person, not pking. Player vs Environment and Player vs Player work differently. Games seem to be work great on a PvE scale but when you start making changes so things balance out on PvP everything just goes in the crapper.

Definitely. That's ulimately why I, and many of my friends, quit. We had no interest in PvP whatsoever. In large part, for me it was because as a BH, I knew that if I ever killed anyone there would be a nerf thread the next day. And also because of role-playing. I preferred to keep my character as a neutral guy who had only interest in money and didn't care much for politics as long as whoever was in power would employ him. But the PvE results of PvP changes really killed the game for me. Despite all of its issues, I still logged in everyday, but it got harder and harder to want to play when I would log in to find yet another move could even more HAM, or didn't work half the time.

Why on earth they couldn't just code PvE and PvP completely separately is beyond me. They did it for reduced damage, why not just reduce specials even more in PvP only and leave the PvE stuff alone? Other than a few "nerf PvE" morons here and there, most of the nerf whines were directed at PvP. I doubt that these chaps really cared how many shots it took me to take down a Mountain Squill, or whether or not I would walk away from it. They were only concerned that they were getting "pwned" in PvP. Stupid it is to wreck the entire game to appease a couple people who don't like losing at PvP (and a lot of them would complain because they didn't win all the time. Once, a doctor came into the BH forum to call for an Eye SHot nerf because he lost one of three duels against a Bounty Hunter. )

Bleh.

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Sadly not even the Star Wars liscense can save this game. It's just too much work, and not enough fun. The thrill of being in a massive online SW universe has finally worn off, and I feel I'm left with nothing....

I cancelled my account tonight. :(

Hurry up KOTOR for PC!

I really think the whole MMORPG genre should be rethought from the ground up. SWG was the 4th one I've played, and I officially give up on them. They are no fun!

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What I found most sad in SWG is the complete lack of character class missions. I mean, you got hunting missions, BH missions, exploration missions, atisan missions, and heck even entertainer missions!!

What about Commando, Squad leader, battle medic and smuggler specific missions? Ditch the stupid entertainer missions and give the higher classes something to do other then go out in the wild and hunt animals. I seriously doubt Han, Lando, Boba or most of the SW characters started their days hunting animals in Corellia. <_<

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