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DEVBLOG: CONSTRUCTION SLOTS AND STACKED ELEMENTS - discussion thread


NQ-Wanderer

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After all the shitstorm (and my quite frustrated post earlier) I wan't to say:

It's nice to see that the "problem" is engaged, but it's from the totally wrong angle.


Some aspects that need to be considered for future planning of this issue:

  • People who are ship designers need many cores
    (even if you create a new and better ship you often dont want to destroy the old one)
  • Especially ship showrooms need many cores
  • Players who reached lategame and find mainly entertainment in building will build larger projects than just 1-2 L-Cores
  • You can be in a large organisation (that needs cores) and in a small team that works more or less independent too (needs cores too). Many larger orgs have main bases and several semi-independent squads.
  • Event areas (Racing Nights, Expo...) need many many cores
  • Nearly every large project needs preparation before the project really starts. Often you will use this project to attract new players to you org. But if you don't have the players before the project starts, you can't start it because less players means not enough cores.
  • And most important: Never make random cores abandon if the limit somehow drops. Just don't allow to place any more new cores, but let the old ones remain. No one want's to loose creations that they worked for weeks or even months just because of a game mechanic.

 

Maybe a system where you can achieve some type of rank with your org would be nice (like milestones). So the core amount is more or less stable and does not go up and down with every single player. You will stay at the current core limitation for some time and when the milestone is reached, the limit expands by a huge amount. Then it's stable again until you reach the next milestone.

Issue just is: how to get the milestones. Currently there are not much opportunities for this (ores, specific elements, quanta, player amount). Maybe a combination of all of them.

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30 minutes ago, fridaywitch said:

 

The current slot limitation is fine.  It's the one that's been proposed that's a REALLY BAD IDEA as it's been explained

no, i also feel that the current restrictions are set far too low when it comes to the character's slots (17).

i want to play the game for many years, but if i don't have any more core slots to complete my building, i can't continue playing either....there's nothing else in dualuniverse....

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1 hour ago, TonyTones said:

Really gonna go and make it that much harder to build big things. You falsely advertise populated cities in your videos but are making it impossible. [filtered]ing joke 

I AM A SOLO PLAYER AND I HAVE 40 CONTRUCTS WHAT THE HELL AM I GOING TO DO THIS MOVE IS WRONG SOLO PLAYERS LIKE ME WILL NOT BEABLE TO PLAY WELL IN DU. I ONLY HAVE 1 ALT SO THAT MEANS I CAN HAVE A MAX OF 25 CONTRUCTS, with my org.

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I think the core count changes really make sense if you look at them objectively.

 

The very stream of comments shows why, players have massively used what was intended to be ORG based cores for personal use. One player should NOT have access to or need hundreds of cores.

 

Yes, I certainly lay blame with NQ for the way they have let this get out of control and only now act. This should have been done years ago, but NQ seems to never have even considered this scenario which must be a big part in their operating cost.

 

That said, I also see how some recent changes, mainly MU and the requirement to run them from a static core has caused an increase in core use.

As they are, a player has 42 core slots, 17 personal and 25 assignable to an org at max skill

 

I'd say that the peronal core sount shoudl be more like 30 or so and the "reserved for org" cores could be more like 50 at max talents
 

Players start with 5 personal and 5 org cores

  • Personal core talents add 2 each level for the basic talent and 3 each level for the advanced which can be trained after L5 on the basic, total personal cores which mean 5+10+15 = 30 personal cores
  • Org core slots add 3 each level on basic, advcanced and expert talents for 5+15+15+15 for 50 cores
  • The basic org core talent (for 20 cores) will also allow these 20 cores an dthe 5 base cores to be assigned to an org the player is super-legate for. advanced and expert can only be assigned to an org that has 5 or more members

So players can have 50 cores on a personal org and can still assign 25 cores to an org of their choice

I believe NQ has no real choice in this and will push it though but I also feel the number are a bit too tight and need to be loosened up. But generally, while it will hurst  for some, I feel it's not unreasonable for them to push this.

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4 minutes ago, blazemonger said:

I think the core count changes really make sense if you look at them objectively. ........  but I also feel the number are a bit too tight and need to be loosened up. But generally, while it will hurt  for some, I feel it's not unreasonable for them to push this.

This proposed change is COMPLETELY unreasonable, as it is a quick fix of tweaking some numbers on the server, instead of addressing the ACTUAL issue of nested orgs - Which NQ acknowledges as the problem in the devblog.

 

This change will result in so many creators and collectors leaving the game that it will not be a viable game anymore.

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Well, that's what they want to throw in the face of all builders. The only thing that makes DU competitive compared to other games.

I am building a 30 core city on stream (twitch) to show more people DU. I would like to build it as an event location/maze/challenge with LUA. With a story and puzzles etc to discover.
I would be very happy to help the game with this.
But well, you make me who does not want to end the game think about it again. I've had fun with the game so far, so I might as well make a clean break.

Everything else has certainly already been lamented:
- Traders who have stations on every planet (solo)
- Org that consist of only 1-2 people and the rest have left everything to them.
- The MU's which eats an incredibly amount of cores.
- Exhibitions and everything that makes building and presenting your own achievement so nice.
- etc

PS: I am looking forward to the Voxel tool, but this is rather the last meal bevor death for me.

 

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9 minutes ago, VandelayIndustries said:

They should nerf it a lot more.  Still too high people dont need all those cores.  we are suppose to build civilization and that means people living together.  Need to get rid of this solo universe they have created and make it a true MMO.  

 

But therefore we need a more advanced org system, real advantages of building close together, better performance to be able to build close together in a large org and and and...

 

Until then it will be a long road. And currently for many players who reached the lategame, building is the only reason why they still play this game. And when its limited this drastically, this will fck up many people.

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So... You work on redeeming yourself by fixing the problems caused with Demeter, or at least,  patching them to make them better.

You are punishing Solo players once again and do to the track record of ignoring player feedback, I have no faith you will find a better way of doing this, not until you force it into place regardless of feedback and are forced to back peddle later only to promise to do better next time. NQ - You have lost my trust.

Yeah, I have stuck with this game for so long because of it's potential. I truly believe(d) it could be the best sandbox game on the market. I played it because I could do anything I wanted solo. I could build my own city, build a dozen ships to display and sell, and play the game the way I wanted. 

But unfortunately, with each major update, you are taking away more and more freedom for me to do what I enjoy doing. I have waited, given feedback, and been hopeful. But it is clear with the current plans for the next update that the plan is to continue to limit what players can do on their own as you try to herd them into large organizations. 

I have met amazing community members, and other than disagreeing with the changes being made with the game, the Staff has always been friendly and helpful when needed. By far I think the community in this game is the best I have ever had the pleasure of being a part of, but I think this is where I bow out. I can not justify to myself putting more hours into a game where I am going to be continually limited patch after patch simply because I enjoy playing the game alone. 

Thank you for the good memories.
Goodbye.

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Here's my feedback in video form, I tried to keep it short. 

This effectively kills my ship shop going forward, had just spent months building it up with Skyexplorer and a couple friends in preperation for new sexy voxel tools to make a new, exciting ships- and have a place to display them. Even if we all committed ALL of our accounts and alts, it'd not be enough. and none of us would have any personal cores to use.

I'm officially in protest of these changes and won't be playing much until this is sorted/finalized. This is the only change since playin at beta start that has elicited this strong of a reaction.

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Just logged in to give feedback because NQ claims that this is the way to give feedback, I call BS on that, but here goes:

 

You can get 16 max personal cores at the cost of almost 5 million talent points. => ~5 weeks of training.

You can get 25 max corp cores at the cost of how many millions of talent points?

 

You want more? Buy more accounts.

 

How, after the way automining, territory, and autominers work. As in every territory requires a core per territory (we can deploy a core across multiple tiles, but only mines on one). Is these few cores a good idea? Especially with the recent changes to automining 56 autominers is optimal, when mining T2 on an outer planet that means 2 miners per tile or 28 cores spent on automining! That leaves maybe 13 cores for space bases, home bases and ships.

 

Please consider either raising the amount of cores OR create a separate mining core that doesn't count towards the max core count. I feel as if NQ is creating separate changes without looking at the interaction with other changes that have been and will be made in the future. The last year has felt like NQ taking stuff away instead of introducing new stuff. Even the implementation of autominers cost us the planet mining. There is only so much of this stuff we'll suffer before throwing in the ring.

 

I currently have four accounts, prepaid for 1+ year per account, so no takebacksies on that, but if the current trend continues like this I won't be renewing. At this rate i won't be playing the entire year even. Please keep in mind, it's not just this patch, it's an accumulation of imposed limitations, this one is just the one that broke the camels back.

 

If these are management decisions, NQ employees need to fight management to keep this an attractive game for as many as possible, not just for our enjoyment of the DU game, but for their own job security. People playing means active subscriptions, subscriptions means money to keep the lights on an keep cat food in the pantry...

 

 

 

 

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My biggest concern is this.  As a creative ship designer. People buy my ships because of aesthetics. I know this. I have people who collect my ships. My ship sales and income in game will dry up quickly. This is going to tank my income. And because of the large amount of cores being taken down its going to tank the element market. So the other system I was setting up for income will also tank. I was building a factory to produce ship parts.

Then I have the Castle on Alioth and the city on Thades. I will have to choose which one to keep. I am most likely going to close the castle on Alioth. 

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I think just "unreasonable, we will leave" is not at all helpful .. build your case, expain why you would need hundreds of cores.

In the end yes, NQ clearly made a great many number of gross miscalculations and have been in the process of correcting that basically since beta started. It also cost JC his company and job I am pretty sure.

 

But I expect these changes are needed if NQ is to enable themselves to bring the game to a launch. If they fail, they fail and that would be on them, but in light of what I expect is the position they are in right now, they have little choice.

 

Besides, the wipe will be the great equalizer allowing players to rethink and restructure their presence in game or leave.. But I expect most will adjust and stay..

Finally, this change was coming, many knew it and most of us who discussed it turned out o be pretty close to what NQ now actually puts on the table. iI just hope they do not do the same thing as with the taxes and undo it before it even gets a a chance to be effective.. Although I expect NQ has much less wiggleroom here.

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15 minutes ago, Hagbard said:

i've been playing since alpha.
i always tried to create content and give back a lot to the community via new fancy stuff ( like hagboards or boats etc.) and i operate a showroom with all ships on display and a marina where i try to keep a copy of each boat/sailboat using my lua for people to walk around in and enjoy the creations.
additionally i have to make some money and operate mining units on around 20 cores. then i have an industry and need a LOT of cores for prototypes and my own ships.
when i am selling tokens i often have to place new temporary cores.
so with all this even after cleaning up every so often i operate around 260 cores in my construct org.
even if i massively reduce stuff, i still would have to remove most of the stuff. so basically this would end my career in this game.
even if NQ would reconsider and go to 100 cores it would be constant struggle of which stuff i would have to remove.
i never used nested orgs ( which was basically more in those past mining days to claim tiles) but still i create content, i have a life in this game and i want to grow. so this could honestly be the final nail in the coffin for DU.
NQ always talked about the visions where they create the plattform and we the players fill it with life and content. but HOW?

If this is about server space or network traffic i would rather pay 1$ more per month to end this stupid plan.

 


I am with Hagbard on this.
Yes there is people with 25 "Dynamic construct" core placed everywhere, junk construct etc...
But there is also a lot of creator or people that have made wonderful project to promote the game and create content for other player. With this change you are removing the small amount of interest of people that want to create content for the game.

1625 core is on the paper. In practice, it will not be like that.
1)  we will not have the skill points to have all 25 construct. (people will have ~21 lvl3) so to have 275  you need ~12 players in a org. (but actually we have multiple org with 275, so we will not be able to keep those core)
2) people that create content atm don't have only 1 org so they have access to more than 275
3) people that have museum or showroom will not be able to keep those beautiful place. Atlas museum is ~ 120 core just by itself and that mean we will not be able to extend it and show the rest of the players the amazing ship people have created in the past.
4) people that have focus their gameplay in the new mining mechanism will not be able to keep that running. You don't just need to have the core fore the MU but you need all the infrastructure to manage the ore transfert.

You are not limiting the number of core organization can have but the number of core a player can dispose.
Every player will be able to have 45 constructs max  => 25 constructs (as org) + 20 constructs (personnal). So basicly you can't play correctly anymore if you don't have some alt's that sit in the org for calibration and core sharing.
Those alts don't provide any content to the game, they are not real player. I have nothing against Alts, but you should not design your game on them.

If the problem is core that are abandoned in a random tile, just implement a salvage mechanism. Don't worry we will clean those core.

Kind regards

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Instead of this mess of a patch when are you all going to implement some small UI changes like a counter of org constructs versus how many is available via talents? When is the organization UI going to get a rework as right now it's a random mess everytime the screen opens. 

 

Also can someone from NQ discuss when the PTS is going to have these changes available for testing? I just don't think this is a good short term solution with the current state of the game. 

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  •  

    Quote

     

    • Each Novean will have 15 assignable organization construct slots, with an additional 10 available from talents.

    This change allows us to scale the maximum number of constructs to the number of players. This can be beneficial to smaller organizations because… 

    • Players can assign these slots to any organization of their choosing, whether or not they are a member of the organization.

     

    Maybe i dont understand something... how could this benefit smaller orgs ? Its the absolute opposite...

    I have 4 payed accounts, and it would still make me reduce my Base and constuctions.... If this goes live in the way you planing its game over for me. Not because i want, i love the game.... it will simple stop me from playing the game.... stoping player from building and creating in a building and creating game is not a good idea....

    If you want to stop orgs from building to much (95% of the world is emty already after last update) then make the limit large enough, so small orgs do not have to reduce thier builds.

    100 per Player should be the minimum you should consider. Not everyone has free alfa keys to boost the personal org limits...


    The last updates i could follow your reasons, to make the game better. But this time is no real gameplay reason, the game gets worsed. Spliting my constructs on all accounts and handle with this rights system and reduce my buildings.... there is absolute no reason that could justify this change.


    Make it smart or dont touch it, it will stop player from playing. I do not want a game were i can only have industry buildings. I want to be creativ, work on large project and fill the world with life.
    If i build a large runway, the half of my cores are used already for one char... thats ridiculous

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In DU I believe Ive found the game Ive been looking for for almost 4 decades, Ive played little else since starting here many months ago and have seen a great number of changes, some good, some bad, but ultimately it was for the good of the game.

Not so with this proposed change to core counts.

I totally understand that the nested org issue needs a fix and that the push should be in the direction of  the player but this game has always been about creating amazing things both epic and minutely complex.

Reducing the number of cores available to me and my fellow players is going to result in a major reverse in progress, one that is likely going to see people leaving the game.

As a ship /Static builder / seller, I dont see a way forward.

We spent a significant amount of time producing our showroom, we make a good DU living, a significant amount of which is pumped back into the community on various projects.

I cannot understand why you would do this without some detailed explanation of what you're aiming for.

Its beginning to feel like a path of self destruction and that would a very great shame.

We love your game, yes a lot of players complain but they still play.

Dont make this an excuse for the playerbase to reduce further. 

Give us some transparency on these decisions, maybe we can help or suggest alternative strategies.

Thanks for reading

 

-A concerned Novean

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So we have a city built by our org but it is occupied by multiple players and orgs. We have cores for infrastructure, shops and apartments. That does not include anything to do with the innerworkings of our actual org (mining units platforms, factories, ships, space stations etc..) We are a small/midsized org where a few core players are doing a lot of work to keep what we have built up and running.

 

We were annoyed with the previous core limits but we adapted and reorganized to fit in that limit. The core limits have gone from 1000s to 100s and now 10s of cores. I understand the max core limit is 1600 but that would take 60+ active players with max skills dedicating all of their cores to one org. I like a very broad solution to a very narrow problem. Please just maybe make organization talents more in depth and take time to train? Right now you could spend multiple years training all pvp talents but you can train all org talents in a miniscule fraction of the time. Some people's main way to play the game is org management and city building yet there is no support for it. 

 

This ripples into how RDMS works in shared spaces. With the current RDMS it is almost impossible to have a shared space with constructs not owned by the host org due to how overlapping build zone works. The org that runs the city/compound either has to own the cores or work on an honor system and hope that citizens (non org owners of cores in the city) do not intentionally or unintentionally turn off overlapping build zone. Because of how large the overlapping build zone area is, it is like setting off an EMP in the city where no constructs can be placed anywhere near that core without overlapping build zone. How is it that someone who has a construct on your tile has more power over these rights than the tile owner.

 

It is painfully obvious to me that NQ does not consider city building in their game design yet every trailer and marketing piece sells the game on this concept. NQ-Mojo was in direct dialogue with me about how our city (Freeport, Teoma) works for the NQ Featurette. I was told that NQ they would use us as a resource of how we were using RDMS and cores to make a functioning city in the game yet I have not heard a peep. RDMS is still a nightmare and features like the new Org Core Construct Slots seem to actively work against the most active builders in the game making projects over cumulative 100s or 1000s of hours. 

 

Please consider city building in future design. I know many of these concerns are likely being shelved until TW is on the table but give us the ability to build large projects in shared spaces. I love DU and I respect NQ's hard work (especially lately) but please talk to players. Find out how we actually use the systems you are creating. So many features added to the game seem to be to limit players and not elevate their ability to do cool things. In the mean time if you are making changes to address exploits please consider the collateral damage to what people have done and how we actually play the game.

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As a small 3 player org, we went through all updates since the beginning of the beta.

 

But this one will be a real pain if not a show stopper for us.

 

We are doing our own mining, 1-7 tiles per ore, 1 construct per tile because deploying a L core at the intersection of three tiles is not an option and we are forced to place one core per tile.

 

Bauxite - 7 tiles, 7 constructs
Coal - 7 tiles, 7 constructs
Hematite - 7 tiles, 7 constructs
Quartz - 4 tiles, 4 constructs

 

Chromite - 7 tiles, 3 constructs
Limestone - 7 tiles, 7 constructs
Malachite - 7 tiles, 7 constructs
Natron - 4 tiles, 4 constructs

 

Acanthite - 7 tiles, 7 constructs
Garnierite - 7 tiles - TODO
Petalite - 5 tiles - TODO
Pyrite - 1 tile, 1 construct

 

Cobaltite - 6 tiles - TODO
Cryolite - 5 tiles - TODO
Gold - 4 tiles, 4 constructs
Kolbeckite - 7 tiles - TODO

 

Columbite - TODO
Ilmenite - 4 tiles, 0 constructs (shared with the natron)
Rhodonite - TODO
Vanadinite - TODO

 

That is 54 constructs

Still 37 to deploy.

 

We are purchasing ore on markets but we need part of our supply to be controlled to not depends on inflation/deflation.

 

We are in space and our main space station has 16 constructs.

 

On each planet of the solar system, we have one space station, a small planet to station hauler and a tri-scanner. 12 planets, 36 constructs.

 

We are managing a store on Utopia Station. 1 construct

 

We are building a huge space store. 26 constructs + 10 constructs for the demo ships we want to sell.

 

The organisation owns a few ship. 10-20 constructs

 

We are doing some scavenging, we need some slots for the constructs we are requisitionning. 10 constructs

 

At some point, we want to do some PVP, we will need an extra 3-4 constructs.

 

And a 5-10 voxel libraries.


That's a total of about 225 constructs,
 

I'm just in the corner crying now.

Edited by Moulinex
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First off, I would just like to state up front, regardless of whether the proposed org changes are the right decision or not, I feel that the approach that has been taken, where this change is introduced independent from and after the introduction of mining units, is just flat out wrong. I was not pleased by the loss of traditional mining, but I drank the kool-aid and committed to trying mining. Many benefits to this system were touted by NQ. For example, the adjacency bonus. This system requires cores to use and incentivizes going bigger. The more tiles you mine (and thus cores you use) gives a larger benefit. So instead of a 1 to 1 benefit from each core used, we were encouraged by this system to grow the number of cores used. Only then, after all this work is done, do we get the carrot replaced with the stick.

 

Now that this ugliness is out of the way, my thoughts on the actual change:

In the right ballpark, but missed by a wide margin. This is a game of building and unlimited possibilities. All I see recently is limitations. In this solution, all constructs are treated equally. I don't think that this is the right approach.

 

We have little or no in game reasons to collaborate, outside of the human need for socialization. There is nothing in the game that actually benefits players coming together to work on projects. Where are the social features? Where is the benefit for orgs that add content and culture to the game?

 

I would like to see an influence system added to the game that would allow creators (either individuals or traditional orgs composed of many distinct players) to be incentivized for creating content in the game. If we the players are supposed to create the game content, we should not be punished for doing so, we should be rewarded.

 

There are many large projects in the game that NQ uses to advertise DU. This is the content and is what makes DU special. These projects consume cores and add value to DU. These projects should be rewarded. If we had a system of influence that rewarded content creators and gave a benefit to visit these constructs, this would be a giant step in the right direction.

As it stands now, many multi-core creations that enrich the game are at risk. These constructs are treated the same as a core that has mining units and nothing else on it.

 

Now if we had some system of influence, where players and orgs that create content that the community enjoys, we could be rewarded for creating excellent content. The rewards could be a decreased cost in core count because of the benefit to the game, decreased tax, etc. Beyond this, many game systems could be created or enhanced a great deal. We could vie for influence over a region and have some type of governmental control. Territory warfare doesn't need to be the only way we can impact the world and control an area. Just like music, art, and religion can shape our real world, works of art in the game should have an equal impact on the game world.

 

I want to see more wild creations from the mad scientist builders. All I see is that these players in particular are going to be hindered the most, yet these are the very players that provide the most benefit to the game and community. I would gladly pay an additional amount for my subscription to have the sandbox I fell in love with. I was sold a dream of player created cities and empires. The future I see is massive stress from monitoring tile taxes and core counts. Who wants to suddenly lose a project they have been working on for a couple of years, because they are ambitious and then have a real world problem take them away from the game for a bit?

 

My challenge to you NQ: I would like to know who is the creative lead on this game now. Please have this person come introduce themselves and explain what is the overall direction of the game. In spirit, DU does not seem to be heading to the same destination that we set out for at the start of beta, let alone what was pitched in the Kickstarter. I think we all would appreciate a better understanding of what the end goal is.

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Wow… you are going to lose so many players with this one. First of all, nested orgs was not only mentioned by JC, it’s in the damn helper screen. How are you going to seriously say this is an exploit or not intended? That’s a straight up lie.

 

At least be honest and say you’re doing this to cut costs or something. Don’t make it seem like players have done something wrong when they haven’t. 
 

There are going to be so many abandoned structures by hard working, creative people, who will have no choice but watch months/years of work just vanish into thin air. You should reward player effort, not penalize it, and yet here we are.

 

Players will only take so much disappointment before they leave for good.  This isn’t just disappointing though, it’s demoralizing. Most other decisions you’ve made, people can roll with the punches and adapt, but this one doesn’t have that luxury IMO. It’s going to be catastrophic if the new core counts are implemented.

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