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Good Bye to Sacred as we used to love it.


BLaaR

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I realize companies should not be subservient to players, but I honestly swear the fan base wasn't even asked of their opinions at all, which is all I'm finding thus far. At this point, it's been a while since anything has happened, so an update is something I'd like to see.

Honestly I think this is the root of the problem. DS never asked/researched what kind of game their already established fan base wanted. Unfortunately, I also do agree with birne from a game developer point of view. The game can't be drastically changed at this point from what DS has come up with. The basic mechanics (no open world, etc.) will be staying the same, but hopefully they can take our feedback so far and put it somewhere positive :)

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That's exactly it - they just went out and decided on what they were going to do - without so much as a single question to the community. On a whim, I checked the German side of the DS forum and the first post I came across reads:

 

There are now some new reports out, collected in here already busy.In contrast to this forum, is discussed in the old Community Forum violently. Vielerseits it touches on sour, the open world to be abolished, that magazine spread misinformation and convey the known information not the Eindrcuk that you have to do it with a sacred. Also, the feeling occurs again that the community is not entered on requests.

 

I hope that these impressions still change .*

 

*Translated by Bing

 

So what's that say? While the DS forum is dead, the one on SIF is not - and there are some rather "spirited" arguments going on there. And that DS is not asking anyone from the community for any feedback.

 

But, you know, there are other studios out there, that have put out new versions of their series. Rockstar, for example, recently put out GTA: V - which takes place in Los Santos (better known IRL as Los Angeles), San Fiero (aka San Francisco) and Las Venturas (aka Las Vegas). But instead of simply rehashing their previous efforts, GTA V doesn't involve Carl Johnson and the rest of the crew from GTA: San Andreas. Instead, they used the same locale - but built the story around 3 brand new people. They did pretty much the same thing with GTA 4 - which takes place in a fictionalized version of New York City (Liberty City in the game).

 

So why am I bringing this up here and now? Mainly because Rockstar Games didn't dumb down the game in the process. In fact, if anything, they added new stuff to the game. Mind you, Rockstar pioneered the whole "open world" thing earlier in the series. The point is - they don't exactly ask for feedback either - but they don't do braindead things like what DS is doing to Sacred 3.

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Hi ! I'm also worried about Sacred 3. No open world, only 2 classes announced so far, no loot ? They must be kidding. I understand that changing a game under development is difficult and expensive, but, on the other side, look at games like The adventures of Van Helsing, made by an indie developer (sure, still has a lot of bugs, and is a short game so far) or Torchlight 2, its possible to create a good arpg without having to innovate and change too much. Van Helsing, with all of its problems, already has a lot of fans. If DS just released Sacred 3 as a remade Sacred 2 (or something similar) solving the main problems (game is too easy if you know how to play - platinum difficulty - killing bosses), annoying agro sometimes, too much rats etc, broken quests ; I would buy it after seeing some reviews and videos for sure.

Sacred 2 must still have a lot of fans; just check here , also the fact that Sacred 2 is sold on Steam, Amazon and probably other places and is not expensive anymore. Why change something that already works ?

So, S3 is scheduled to be released in the end of this year ?

Edited by gamer x
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Well ... it's not that easy (with the source code).

Sacred 1 had and has nothing to do with DS. But that's too old anyway ...

Even if DS managed to find a hard drive with "the code" on it, they couldn't do much with it. To decompile and analyse it, it's required to have a whole bunch of tools and servers running those tools. All of which died with Ascaron and Studio 2. There are however some things they could look at, just like the CM Patch guys do, but not more.

Also, I don't think a game mirroring Sacred 2 would be that succesfull. You need to evolve the genre. Many players were alienated by Diablo and sort of made the ARPG genre a little harder for everybody else. (At least that's what the DS producers told me at gc 2012 when we were given the Sacred 3 presentation.)

As for the lack of news ... hard to tell what's going on. I don't think we'll see extremely big differences between the hands-off preview version from 2012 and what it might look like whenever it resurfaces. Simply because it's pretty expensive to start nearly again from scratch when you're already 2 or 3 years into development.

I personally don't think DS planned to make a huge amount of money with Sacred 3 anyway after the "failure" of Sacred 2. Without digging it up again, Sacred 2 was way too expensive to be profitable, so DS' first aim needed to be a development without exploding costs. But going back to the drawing board would mean exactly that.

There might be some smaller changes to some features we've criticised but I really don't think that's going to be something major like an open world ...

I am wondering if you put 2 number two's in there for a reason..................*ahem* :whistle:

 

Darn ! The quote misses out his numbers, which was the whole point of my post.............DOH !!

You'll have to look at his original post to get it. *sigh*

Edited by cider_steve
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While I understand why everyone is talking about Deep Silver, with them owning the rights, what I dont understand is how no one is talking about the actual development company. Deep silver most likely doesnt have a single developer actually working for them, they only publish games, and as far as I can tell, Keen games has never built a game of this scope. While they have some games with good reviews, I dont see them just jumping right in to this and making a great game. I have been taught by the gaming industry to be very cynical, so by default, I never expect good basically until the game is out, and right now, it doesnt sound good. Torchlight 2 is ok, Path of Exile is amazing. If You like this sort of game, I would go with Path and be done with this mess. Though we could alway try and find a way to foster a moderatly good modding community for Sacred 2, which would be cool.

wolfie2kX

"Evolve is exactly the WRONG word for the situation. DEVOLVE - DEVO - is more like it."

Devolve

Verb
  1. Transfer or delegate (power) to a lower level, esp. from central government to local or regional administration.
  2. (of duties or responsibility) Pass to (a body or person at a lower level).
Synonyms
transfer

Just to point out, talking about the word evolution, the word devolve has no meaning, its not a real thing. Evolution would encopass any change, good or bad, even a step backward, technically something cant 'devolve' because the concept people attribut to that is just another way to evolve.

Edited by Brianwulf
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Just to point out, talking about the word evolution, the word devolve has no meaning, its not a real thing. Evolution would encopass any change, good or bad, even a step backward, technically something cant 'devolve' because the concept people attribut to that is just another way to evolve.

 

 

Current usage makes for "getting" the new use of the word. Things are always changing so fast, it's already in a few websites:

 

https://www.vocabulary.com/dictionary/devolve

 

devolve audio-yrxp37.gif

You've probably heard about that organisms evolve over time. Well, life is complicated, and sometimes things devolve instead — to devolve is to get worse instead of better.

The de- in devolve is a clue to its meaning. When things devolve, they deteriorate, degenerate, fall apart, go to the dogs, and generally end up worse. When a classroom gets loud and rowdy, a teacher might say the class has devolved. There is another, less negative, meaning of devolve. You can devolve responsibilities: for example, the U.S. government could devolve a certain responsibility to the states. The non-negative meaning of devolve is kind of like passing things on in a will. If I devolve something to you, you inherit it.

I'm sher it'll be "official" whatever that means in a year

 

 

The word "feels" good too, no?

 

:P

 

gogo

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The website there has no basis in science, I was more going from the scientific standpoint. No scientist ever talks about devolution, because the process of evolution does not in anyway have bearing on positive or negative changes, only changes over time. Regardless of the meaning that website gives, if you use the word devolve in the context of evolution, you are using it wrong. However, in this case I can be swayed, because we arent actually talking about the 'science' of evolution, we are talking about the evolution of a game, which is not the same thing. I am going to drop this topic now, because it takes away from the main point, which is, do we think Sacred 3 is going to be good? My vote is for no, I dont think so. I think we should make an attempt to perpetuate someone, or many someones, to mod/overhaul sacred2 instead, that would be cool.

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Brianwulf -

 

Thanks for the purely scientific feedback.

 

My meaning was not clear enough - even though I did try to emphasize what I was going after - and nobody picked it up.

 

Guessing y'all are too young to remember a little band that came out back in the day who asked the burning question:

 

Q: Are we not men? A: We are DEVO

 

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DEVO - making planting pots cool since 1980 :)

 

I've already said in other threads that I really doubt I'll ever get this game. But what gets me is the lack of news from either Keen or Deep Silver. If they were doing damage control and re-doing aspects of the game to satisfy the fan base you would think they would publicize that. It's bad PR to not to. Conversely if they were simply going ahead with the development as is, you would still want to get some news out just to keep the fan base interested.

 

The lack of anything makes me think more of vaporware than anything else.

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Vaporware..? I suppose that's a possibility. Though you'd think they would have announced that they cancelled the game entirely.

 

I think the cause of their silence - they are afraid of a scene like this happening in front of their headquarters..

 

post-14586-0-91617300-1373322519_thumb.jpg

 

Given the vitriol of some of the posts - mainly on Deep Silver's forums and on the old SIF site, it's not unexpected. The truth is, it's not just people disliking what DS announced - it's more along the lines of "despise" or even outright "HATE"...

 

I think DS underestimated how invested people have become to Sacred 1 and 2. I think even Birne underestimates that factor as well.

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It would have helped if they had been able to get at least a few of the original dev team on this. They would have a better understanding of whats going on and possibly what people want from the game.

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I'm not seriously thinking it's vaporware, just reminds me of it. Just been so long since the first screenshots that I begin to wonder. Keeping everyone in the dark (no pun intended) seems to be a very bad strategy

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Yeah... That would indeed have been a good thing - except it's been so long so who knows where most of them have drifted off to...

 

They all likely have other jobs that they aren't likely to drop just for the sake of helping them out with Sacred 3.

 

 

And yes, it IS bad strategy. All it does is allow the bad vibes to fester.

Edited by wolfie2kX
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I think DS underestimated how invested people have become to Sacred 1 and 2. I think even Birne underestimates that factor as well.

I don't think Birne is underestimating how INVESTED people have become to the Sacred series. Without a doubt, almost no one will argue that they loved the games when they played them and would love to see similar (and better) versions and sequels come out. There's certainly a lot of heart there from those who play. What I think Birne is getting at is the AMOUNT of people who are invested. I agree with him on this point here. Earlier you said that DarkMatters has about 27-30 thousand members. I'd wager about 2,000 of them come from something completely unrelated to Sacred (guild wars, Ogame, etc.). And even saying that maybe Clan DA has the same (doubtful because we are a lot of duplicates over there), and then the SIF, you're only looking at somewhere around 100,000 caring players. I'm sorry, but heart can only carry you so far with a triple 'A' publisher and the economy. Am I being pessimistic? Yes. But I am being pessimistic because the facts scare me. :help:

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I will agree that the numbers aren't in the bazillions, but I still say that you have to play to your loyal audience first.

 

Why? Because they are going to be your emissaries. They will get the word of mouth out to their friends, and their friends' friends and so forth. These people are always the front line of ANY advertising campaign - especially if you don't have a huge advertising budget.

 

Unless you plan on spending the equivalent of Microsoft's annual profits on TV advertising in an international campaign to get your product known and in people's consciousness, you have to work with what you've got. Online game reviews are cool - but who are you more likely to believe? Some shill writing about a game or your best bud who got it and is playing it?

 

If the reviewer says it's the best. game. EVAR! and your friend says it's a sucky pile of crap - odds are your friend who's been playing it might have a clue. Your friend isn't being paid to write a glowing review. He can even show you why he thinks it stinks. In fact, he can even let you play on his copy for a bit - and that will go a LOT further to make your mind up about the game and any hype-piece on the 'net.

 

DS is throwing away all of the devout fans of the series for what? It makes NO sense.

Edited by wolfie2kX
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Unless you plan on spending the equivalent of Microsoft's annual profits on TV advertising in an international campaign to get your product known and in people's consciousness, you have to work with what you've got. Online game reviews are cool - but who are you more likely to believe? Some shill writing about a game or your best bud who got it and is playing it?

 

If the reviewer says it's the best. game. EVAR! and your friend says it's a sucky pile of crap - odds are your friend who's been playing it might have a clue. Your friend isn't being paid to write a glowing review. He can even show you why he thinks it stinks. In fact, he can even let you play on his copy for a bit - and that will go a LOT further to make your mind up about the game and any hype-piece on the 'net.

Case in point: Godhand. A PS2 game from the now disbanded Clover Studios that got a really, really, REALLY crappy review as well as little advertising because it was considered above all else 'too hard'. Players who have actually played the game, however, gave it praises all around and wanted to lynch those reviews for not giving it the chance it so deserved. It was a game harkening back to the old skool beat-em-ups, except in 3d with plenty of thought put into gameplay. It was hard, but it was also fair as in it was not difficult for the sake of being difficult. It simply pushes the player to improve his game as the better you get at it, the harder the game becomes. Thus Godhand became a cult classic amongst PS2 titles.

 

Honestly, for all the difficulties in getting feedback, and it is lots of work, all I'm sensing in all this is that DS wasn't even trying at all. No communication, nothing.

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I think it's way too early to say anything about S3 as all I've seen is 5 pictures and lot's of rumors what is going to be. If the game doesn't have things that made sacred so great, but still has the feel of sacred, it could be fun game to play and good purchase.

 

Just thinking as I remember when Bethesda released first info about fallout 3, most of the fallout series fans (including me) were really upset for going 3d and more action based gameplay. I really hated those first pictures about the game and had really no interest of buying it as I thouhgt they ruined everything good fallout series had earlier. But after it was released and more videos about the game came out, it started to look pretty good so I bought it.. and all the dlc's.. and new vegas... and al the dlc's to that game too. :P It was SO GOOD, even it is totally different than original fallout games. I must have played both games atleast 20+ times thru and all the dlc's atleast twice (they were not as good), so first impression isn't allways right.

 

Same thing happened whit Diablo 3. D2 was a great game and first pictures and videos about d3 didn't impress me at all. It was different than original games. Still ended up buying the game after seeing it action. It was fun game (until 1.04 patch or something like that) and gave me 200+ hours of fun gaming and I think it's really good value for games nowdays.

 

It had same problems as S3 has claimed to have. Loot system was totally broken as you really could not find anything good and when you did find something "good", it was still just crap atleast compared to the stuff you could buy from auction house for very little amount of gold. D3 doens't have any builds as you allways get all the skills at same time, so every character is the same. Gameplay couldn't be more linear. Still, it was fun game for a while..

 

This is just my thoughts about S3.. it could be a good game or a bad game, it's way too early to tell. Games were better in old days, but the world has changed a lot since. New players like consume games faster, whit small learning curve and really easy difficulty level. That is sad, but what can we do about it.

Edited by Obsession
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Well... I hope you're right about that.

 

But I think you may have missed some comments - not rumors - from Deep Silver - on what Sacred 3 is supposed to be.

 

1.) The loot system isn't broken - it's gone for the most part.

2.) NO open world - just a linear point A to point B type game.

 

I don't know how many hours of game play I've gotten out of Sacred and Sacred 2 - but I know it's FAR more than a mere 200 hours. And I'm a late arrival... There are people here who played the game pretty much from the start. I'll go out on a limb and guess they've likely logged thousands of hours...

 

Sacred 2 wasn't all THAT complicated to learn - Tho it DID require a bit of learning - and that was half the fun - finding out what all the various Combat Arts did, how they worked, etc... The side quests gave you more opportunities to level up, get goodies, and learn about life on Ancaria. That was part of the charm of the game (both of them actually - Sacred 2 was very similar to the first game) that made replaying the game interesting - mainly because you never knew what you were going to find after you opened that barrel or whacked that bad guy.

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Let's be honest here, DS has already shot themselves in the foot over Sacred3. The game was at the top of my buy list sight unseen until DS did such a rubbish job of keeping the waiting fanbase in the dark, then releasing information that showed the upcoming game to be a total load of crap that bears no relation to either Sacred game in any aspect. Then as soon as they see the negative response to what they want to publish, they go hide in the dark again and tell us nothing. Sacred3 is now no longer on my buy list at all and I have no intention of waiting, money in hand, for what I am afraid they will end up releasing. If they want my money now, they will have to wait until I have seen the game in action, via Youtube gameplay reviews at the very least. So instead of still having a guaranteed sale, they now have to convince me to buy it!

 

I rather doubt that I am the only one either, think of how many dedicated fans are now going to wait and see before buying and how that will affect sales. For example, a friend has already asked me if I am eagerly awaiting the next Sacred since I am so addicted to the franchise. I told him what I just told you and he decided that if I feel that way he will wait until I tell him if it is worth buying and so will his friend. OK, that is only a couple of prospective customers, but multiply that by all the fanbase they are alienating. Word of mouth goes a long way.

Edited by podgie_bear
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All that said, if we want DeepSilver to meet us at least halfway, we also must meet them there by putting our trust and support in them.

 

In my opinion, the problem about Sacred 3 so far is not the lack of information on it, but that all we had seen so far doesn’t show anything of what separated the series form the rest of generic hack&slash RPGs.

What made you a fan of the series that you can’t find anywhere else? The plot and its twists? Unique humor and satire? A lively world? A balance of multiple genres? Hilarious glitches? Special characters and NPCs? Why are you willing to rage for it and not go looking for something else? Look for THAT when you criticize Sacred 3.

 

To me watching some of you argue about changing the square map into a rectangle comes of as game hype sabotage. Having some radical changes in the grind might be for the best - it’s a lot better then stagnation for a sequel. Though, true, it could be worse.

 

As long as the lore and spirit of Ancaria is there, as long as DeepSilver and the developers add “missed parts” later as patches, DLC or expansions, and as long as the community can mod/fix the game to its liking years after its release (like Sacred 2 community patch) we will buy and play the hell out of it.

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I should visit more frequently ... :D

I am curious about the analysis and the way DS came about the direction, because I do have a hard time believing that ditching the open world and streamlining gameplay to an arcade hack and slash were what the fan base wanted, and the open world plus the time to build your character and explore were integral parts of the series. I'm also having the hardest time finding anything within the DS forum that so much posed anything to the community what they wanted for the sequel. I see mayhap people suggesting things here and there, but otherwise lots of complaints. I realize companies should not be subservient to players, but I honestly swear the fan base wasn't even asked of their opinions at all, which is all I'm finding thus far. At this point, it's been a while since anything has happened, so an update is something I'd like to see.

The threads were moved to the archives after finishing ...

german: http://forum.deepsilver.com/forum/showthread.php/45298-Aufruf-Wünsche-für-Sacred-3

english: http://forum.deepsilver.com/forum/showthread.php/45297-Suggestions-and-Wishes-for-Sacred-3

I'll look into it :)

 

For the open world: I don't know any facts so take this with a grain of salt ... I can aimagine some reasons for the lack of open world. One might be the engine.

Keen already had an engine ready for development that they developed on their own. Since Keen has had little to none experience with large desktop development the engine might just not be able to handle an open world.

Another cause might be the difficulty an open world brings to development. You have to fill the world with life. Something Ascaron struggled with as well ... And as I've said before I think one of the key goals to development for DS and Keen was a budget not suddenly exploding. An open world is something that can blow up pretty quickly.

Also something they should keep in mind is that by alienating the Sacred fanbase (and there are a lot of us, most of which rarely comment on forums) they are asking for a hell of a lot of negative publicity if they abuse the franchise. Word of mouth goes a long, long way with the internet and forums carry a lot more weight than some flashy advertising. But hey, it's their money. If they want to pour it down the drain by producing just another boring linear hack'n'slash, that's up to them. But consumers are getting bored with flashy graphics hiding poor quality games that can be completed in a few hours with no replayability. There are hundreds of games out there like that already, why would people want to pay for another one?

I think this is something DS had in mind. They just came to another conclusion. (whether they are right or not is up for debate ...)

The problem imho is the obsession of PR and that lot with numbers and just numbers. How many likes did we get in the last week? How many people are talking about us? How can we increase that? That doesn't take into account the quality of those numbers.

Just by looking at the numbers of visitors on the forums and so on you could conclude that there was not much left of the community. So, DS might have thought, well, there is hardly anybody left to "please", let's do something else.

Afaik Citadel was aimed to lead some new players not knowing Sacred to the franchise. That didn't work out ...

So in conclusion I don't think DS forgot about fans. They just underestimated them. The numbers of them. The quality ...

 

About replayability:

Different paths within a level, different solutions to those ecounters, paths you can opnly take if you have a specific combat art equipped and so on. How well that works remains unknown untill we get a hands-on experience but just from the sound of it ... I can see replayabilty there.

So, S3 is scheduled to be released in the end of this year ?

It was / is. No official word about any change there.

Personally I highly doubt it will be released this year. For various reasons ...

While I understand why everyone is talking about Deep Silver, with them owning the rights, what I dont understand is how no one is talking about the actual development company. Deep silver most likely doesnt have a single developer actually working for them, they only publish games, and as far as I can tell, Keen games has never built a game of this scope. While they have some games with good reviews, I dont see them just jumping right in to this and making a great game.

DS recently bought the Saints Row franchise and its developer Volition. That is the only development studio currently owned by DS. There was a studio in Vienna before but it was closed due to economic reasons a few years ago.

But: It's not like DS hasn't a word in the development. Creative Producers and such from DS are involed in the development of Sacred 3 as well. It's not just Keen games on their own.

It would have helped if they had been able to get at least a few of the original dev team on this. They would have a better understanding of whats going on and possibly what people want from the game.

A few former devs are working on it. Or were working on it. I don't know what the current count is but there were at least three I know of.

 

 

I think DS underestimated how invested people have become to Sacred 1 and 2. I think even Birne underestimates that factor as well.

I don't think Birne is underestimating how INVESTED people have become to the Sacred series. Without a doubt, almost no one will argue that they loved the games when they played them and would love to see similar (and better) versions and sequels come out. There's certainly a lot of heart there from those who play. What I think Birne is getting at is the AMOUNT of people who are invested. I agree with him on this point here. Earlier you said that DarkMatters has about 27-30 thousand members. I'd wager about 2,000 of them come from something completely unrelated to Sacred (guild wars, Ogame, etc.). And even saying that maybe Clan DA has the same (doubtful because we are a lot of duplicates over there), and then the SIF, you're only looking at somewhere around 100,000 caring players. I'm sorry, but heart can only carry you so far with a triple 'A' publisher and the economy. Am I being pessimistic? Yes. But I am being pessimistic because the facts scare me. :help:

 

 

Yup ...

I was only looking at numbers there. I know how invested people are in the Sacred games. I'm one of them :)

Estimating numbers here is difficult. Since we don't know at how many the game is aimed at and how many copies they need to sell before breaking even it's not really something we can talk about without huge speculation.

I will agree that the numbers aren't in the bazillions, but I still say that you have to play to your loyal audience first.

 

Why? Because they are going to be your emissaries. They will get the word of mouth out to their friends, and their friends' friends and so forth. These people are always the front line of ANY advertising campaign - especially if you don't have a huge advertising budget.

I agree with you that you have to take in account what the hardcore fans want to use them as the word spreaders. But you still need to please enough of the none harcore fans to sell the game to enough people. Finding the right mix there is the difficult part.

 

I'll try to get the comparison between the threads and what I know about Sacred 3 up quickly ...

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