• Fallout 4's story fails where New Vegas' doesn't
    421 replies, posted
Having the mindset that characters don't develop overtime is really what holds people back from being able to RP. I don't know if you have noticed ingame but an atomic bomb has blown up the country. That alone is enough of a reason to rationalize the start of a new life for your character. Your character was either a military veteran or a law school graduate, keyword being [b]WAS[/b]. Now your job is to make your character whatever you want in the post apocalypse. I mean fucking hell your job DURING New Vegas was and ALWAYS WAS the Courier. Everyone in the game referred to you as a delivery boy all the damn time, because that's what your character is. There were even moments in the game that would refer to your characters past, but nobody bitches about this because reasons. In Fallout 4, NEVER has my character's past of being a war veteran has been mentioned. No one asked who I was before the war. The one thing my character wants to do is find the only family member that could be alive in this dreaded apocalyptic future. I mean fuck dude, you even have the option to dodge mentioning your son most of the time.
[QUOTE=NoobSauce;49161498]Having the mindset that characters don't develop overtime if really what holds people back from being able to RP. I don't know if you have noticed ingame but an atomic bomb has blown up the country. That alone is enough of a reason to rationalize the start of a new life for your character. Your character was either a military veteran or a law school graduate, keyword being [b]WAS[/b]. Now your job is to make your character whatever you want in the post apocalypse. I mean fucking hell your job DURING New Vegas was and ALWAYS WAS the Courier. Everyone in the game referred to you as a delivery boy all the damn time, because that's what your character is. There were even moments in the game that would refer to your characters past, but nobody bitches about this because reasons. In Fallout 4, NEVER has my character's past of being a war veteran been mentioned. No one asked who I was before the war. The one thing my character wants to do is find the only family member that could be alive in this dreaded apocalyptic future. I mean fuck dude, you even have the option to dodge mentioning your son most of the time.[/QUOTE] Whenever someone asks you about pre-war stuff you can just dodge the question, lie, flat out refuse to answer or tell the truth. Playing a male char and interacting with BoS even lets you say you had military training (without specifying from when) and they appreciate you for that.
The BoS is introduced as pretty tough and efficient, and they're more than generous with you for helping them. The Institute doesn't treat you like shit and is also quite inviting when you first meet them. It's only later than you get the more questionable stuff, and even then, you can easily counteract it with what you've seen so far. I also still think the minutemen are the NCR, because they share the same idea (majority of the troops composed of voluntary poorly trained units, poor resource management, poor logistics, etc). Sure you're technically the leader of the minutemen but in reality the minutemen are disorganized and difficult to handle. They also both love to abuse your generosity and will constantly try to send you on as many errands as possible while claiming they can't pay you.
[QUOTE=RichyZ;49161437][sp]father says it a few times, stating that everything above ground is a lost cause and needs to be erased/replaced to build a better future, or alternatively just live below ground forever and ignore the topside[/sp][/QUOTE] [sp] he says its a lost cause and that the future of humanity is underground but i dont remember him ever saying that theyre going to kill everyone/destroy the surface themselves [/sp] [sp] also the writing doesnt really make them the bad guys when you get to a certain point, they're only the bad guys in the beginning because no one understands and is scared of them [/sp]
[QUOTE=Ganerumo;49161387]New Vegas and Fallout 4 have the exact same quest progression though. First act is a simple task and your factions don't matter. Second act you have to choose one of four factions, and you're given a lot of quests. Past a certain point, you become the enemy of the other factions, and you get mostly railroaded into the main quest until it ends. [B]In New Vegas your actions also had no impact on the factions.[/B] It was either "you helped the faction but you were a bad guy so your actions were questioned" or "you helped the faction and you were a good guy so you were bros". Only the secondary factions and sidequests were impacted by your actions. [editline]a[/editline] Also Fallout isn't a conventional pen & paper RPG and hasn't been since Fallout 2 (fallout 1 and 2 were already very simplified, casual versions of traditional RPGs, by the way), stop expecting it to work like a traditional p&p rpg in vanilla.[/QUOTE] That's just not true. In the NCR questline alone you can receive various endings unrelated to the Battle of Hoover Dam. See: How you dealt with the Great Khans, BoS, Boomers, House, Kimball ect. On the main end slides: Obsidian wanted to keep the ending relatively ambiguous. The writers didn't want to elaborate too much on what happens after the battle because they didn't want any one faction to be 'the best choice'. Still though, 3 endings [I]depending [/I]on karma [I]depending [/I]on which of the 4 factions you chose along with the extra endings on top is waaay more than any other Fallout game in terms of [U]main quest slides[/U].
[QUOTE=RichyZ;49161544]the bos have the dc wasteland under martial law and from what lore sez, people aren't very happy about it (read: they turned into old bos who are pretty huge dickheads) [editline]21st November 2015[/editline] they send synths up to the surface to basically fuck over the current human population see: [sp]the mayor of diamond city[/sp] they're also responsible for the current outbreak of super mutants on the surface iirc[/QUOTE] [sp] well the institute doesnt even like him, hes just there to keep reporting the events, what's malicious about what the mayor does? [/sp]
[QUOTE=NoobSauce;49161498]Having the mindset that characters don't develop overtime if really what holds people back from being able to RP. I don't know if you have noticed ingame but an atomic bomb has blown up the country. That alone is enough of a reason to rationalize the start of a new life for your character. Your character was either a military veteran or a law school graduate, keyword being [B]WAS[/B]. Now your job is to make your character whatever you want in the post apocalypse. I mean fucking hell your job DURING New Vegas was and ALWAYS WAS the Courier. Everyone in the game referred to you as a delivery boy all the damn time, because that's what your character is. There were even moments in the game that would refer to your characters past, but nobody bitches about this because reasons. In Fallout 4, NEVER has my character's past of being a war veteran been mentioned. No one asked who I was before the war. The one thing my character wants to do is find the only family member that could be alive in this dreaded apocalyptic future. I mean fuck dude, you even have the option to dodge mentioning your son most of the time.[/QUOTE] I can recall a several instances where the main character's past life is mentioned off the top of my head, their past is set in stone. In New Vegas the Courier's past is far less intrusive, they were a person who delivered packages to the Divide and Mojave, virtually anyone could do that. Their personality is still up to you. Roleplaying your own character in Fallout 4 is like playing Mass Effect and trying to roleplay anyone other than Commander Shepard. Try all you like but at the end of the day you're still the character the developers wrote for you.
Also about the BoS [sp]it's pretty obvious the brotherhood was getting very weary of Elder Lyons' shit and considering the color scheme of the T-60s it's fair to assume the outcasts have likely taken over again, although they're still a lot more generous than they were back on the west coast. They're tough as fuck and not very likable because of that, but it's either the cunts in power armor that at least protect the land or the raiders and the mutants that want you dead or worse.[/sp]
[QUOTE=Ganerumo;49161476]Keep that bias strong buddy[/QUOTE] lol says you dude you have a clear bias against almost ever facet of NV [editline]21st November 2015[/editline] [QUOTE=RichyZ;49161578]tho beth did reference the ending of nv and it's very likely that the ncr won the battle of hoover dam so goodbye legion of shitty humans[/QUOTE] That doesn't mean the NCR was the best faction to control New Vegas, it's just the one they chose to be canon.
in fairness the real endings of those games are generally the one most people pick too, so it all works out alright
[QUOTE=Ganerumo;49161537][B]The BoS is introduced as pretty tough and efficient[/B], and they're more than generous with you for helping them. The Institute doesn't treat you like shit and is also quite inviting when you first meet them. It's only later than you get the more questionable stuff, and even then, you can easily counteract it with what you've seen so far. I also still think the minutemen are the NCR, because they share the same idea (majority of the troops composed of voluntary poorly trained units, poor resource management, poor logistics, etc). Sure you're technically the leader of the minutemen but in reality the minutemen are disorganized and difficult to handle. They also both love to abuse your generosity and will constantly try to send you on as many errands as possible while claiming they can't pay you.[/QUOTE] Aye. BoS comes off as like a better written Legion or Enclave. They're kind of big assholes but they technically are trying to make the Wasteland a better place, they're a necessary evil that's trying to offer stability and protection. They're the Stormcloaks of Fallout 4. They've got some questionable morals, but they're not exactly wrong.
[QUOTE=Vasey105;49161600]in fairness the real endings of those games are generally the one most people pick too, so it all works out alright[/QUOTE] Actually, if the global achievement stats for New Vegas are anything to go by, more people went for the wild card ending than the NCR ending. Having the NCR ending be canon clears things up, though.
Ashur and his Pitt were pretty much a better written Legion in every aspect (starting with the fact you can actually agree with him and not play a chaotic evil character), and it's pretty obvious that bethesda took inspiration from their own expansion to work on the BoS in fallout 4. They're a mix of Lyons' ideology, of the Outcast ideology and of Ashur's very cynical view of the world. They hoard tech, they help the people and they protect them from themselves with rigor and strict regulation. [editline]22nd November 2015[/editline] Also since Fallout 4 no longer has a karma system (thank god for that), the player's actions are now a lot more grey and justified by sheer opinions and outlook on life rather than some arbitrary value.
I think the main thing here is that it's not the faction writing that's bad, it's just the general main quest in itself. Beth tried to make very personal stories in 3/4 that are personal [I]to the character that they made up[/I], not to the player and whatever character that they might come up with. The bottom line is that they're just not that good at writing such personal stories. Much like Tolkien, Beth is far better at writing about the larger world and it's inhabitants as opposed to a very emotional or locked in story. Everyone pretty much agrees that the Civil War line in Skyrim was far better than the Main Quest, and that the side quests of Oblivion were much more interest than that games Main Quest. But I think it's pretty universal that personal stories in games typically don't work out very well. In Witcher 2/3, Heavy Rain, New Vegas, STALKER, Wolfenstein TNO, GTA4, Far Cry 3, ect, ect. I didn't care about the main object of desire, whether it be someone who's wronged the character or someone who the character loves, the better parts of those plots are the spots where you get to explore the world that was created, not chase some arbitrary thing that the main character wants. [editline]21st November 2015[/editline] [QUOTE=Ganerumo;49161630]Ashur and his Pitt were pretty much a better written Legion in every aspect (starting with the fact you can actually agree with him and not play a chaotic evil character), and it's pretty obvious that bethesda took inspiration from their own expansion to work on the BoS in fallout 4. They're a mix of Lyons' ideology, of the Outcast ideology and of Ashur's very cynical view of the world. They hoard tech, they help the people and they protect them from themselves with rigor and strict regulation. [editline]22nd November 2015[/editline] Also since Fallout 4 no longer has a karma system (thank god for that), the player's actions are now a lot more grey and justified by sheer opinions and outlook on life rather than some arbitrary value.[/QUOTE] I'd argue that the karma system was practically done away with in NV also. Sure it existed, but there was almost no focus on it compared to 3. It was actually so in the background that trying to access the Karma screen would actually show you the Reputation screen first.
4 has a definitive lack of anything really going on outside of the main quest or the main factions. Most settlements seem to exist purely to join the Minutemen or for the settlement building system. I never really minded the karma system to be honest. At the very least I would have liked to at least be able to influence the policies of the faction I joined, not make them do a 180 for no reason but maybe convince Maxson to go a bit easier on non-hostile mutants or convince the Institute to actually give humans on the surface a chance and stop outright murdering entire settlements for a bit of research.
[QUOTE=RichyZ;49161588]yeah im just saying that now nv is also set in stone (as well as fo3) which im cool with, nice to have a consistent universe after a game is well past release[/QUOTE] It's a small reference that doesn't explicitly mention them winning Vegas so it might not be canon. Personally I don't think it needs to be mentioned, it doesn't impact FO4 and it kind of shits on players who went for otherwise. Better to let people have their freedom. Besides, it's not Beth's story so they shouldn't be choosing a canon ending anyway.
[QUOTE=Bread_Baron;49161734]It's a small reference that doesn't explicitly mention them winning Vegas so it might not be canon. Personally I don't think it needs to be mentioned, it doesn't impact FO4 and it kind of shits on players who went for otherwise. Better to let people have their freedom. Besides, it's not Beth's story so they shouldn't be choosing a canon ending anyway.[/QUOTE] It is Beth's series however. I think it'd be better if the avoided the topic until the absolutely had to state so but they can pretty much do whatever they want. Hell they can call the entirety of Fallout 1 non-canon and they'd be within their right to, just doesn't mean I'll like it or even listen to it.
I thought every faction in this game had little to no motivation that made any sense except for the minutemen. The institute wanted to improve on humanity by making these gen 3 synths that they refused to call human. And they are absolutely not evil no siree despite abducting random people and leaving these gen 1 synths on a "kill everything on sight" mode, showing how much they really care. The BoS has some punk-ass bitch leading it and in 10 years became generic space marines that suddenly show up on the commonwealth to destroy this enemy they know nothing about for reasons that don't really make sense. The railroad is a tiny organization that wants to free a "people" of like 20 or so synths at most by destroying the institute and killing everyone inside it, which is kind of batshit. The whole thing feels like a mess of someone trying to escape the generic good/bad guy plot from FO3 and becoming horribly confused in the process. It's kind of fucking garbage and playing through it just left me disappointed. The rest of the game is mostly pretty great though, don't get me wrong, i haven't really left my house since it came out but they really fucked up some of it.
I'm so tired hearing about how Obsidian should do another Fallout. They will probably never make another one and talking about it isn't going to make it happen. Also, Obsidian is in no way infallible and are not the perfect studio you guys make them out to be. Without Bethesda, Obsidian wouldn't have had the infrastructure to create the Fallout story they created; remember, they were lucky enough to make a sequel while Bethesda were the ones stuck working out the kinks in their engine, re-developing the IP, etc. With how worshipped Obsidian is, sometimes I really wish they [I]would[/I] make a fallout game and just have it be mediocre to prove my point. It doesn't even have to be bad, just average. At this point Obsidian is like Valve and HL3.
[QUOTE=G3rman;49162587] Without Bethesda, Obsidian wouldn't have had the infrastructure to create the Fallout story they created; remember, they were lucky enough to make a sequel while Bethesda were the ones stuck working out the kinks in their engine, re-developing the IP, etc. [/QUOTE] I don't get this argument, because without obsidian to begin with you wouldn't even have Bethesda's fallout. It's weird that so many people forget how hard bethesda clung to the old fallouts factions and lore in fallout 3
I still gotta give Bethesda more props this time around, they at least created new and interesting factions and even though the story isn't amazing, it at least stands up as a pretty good game with a fun to explore world, which I can't say for Fallout 3
The best thing about all this is we may have faults with the game but we all love it
[QUOTE=Atlascore;49162766]What are you even talking about? Obsidian didn't make the original Fallout games, Interplay did, the only thing Bethesda has to be thankful for is that Obsidian accepted the contract to make New Vegas.[/QUOTE] Obsidian is made up of original Fallout developers.
[QUOTE=RichyZ;49162722] are you one of those people who thinks fo3 is better than nv by any chance?[/QUOTE] You say that like it's a bad thing. How dare people have a dissenting opinion? As far as I'm concerned, both games have their ups and downs. Neither one is a favorite of mine. I respect both companies and their devs for the work they put in, regardless of the end result (and I enjoyed both games, so it isn't a big deal to me). Obsidian isn't a one trick pony that lives to serve the fanboys calling out for Fallout New Vegas II. They have other very successful projects that they can and should continue to develop. They don't need Bethesda or Fallout to prove they are awesome at what they do. [editline]22nd November 2015[/editline] [QUOTE=HAKKAR!!!;49162720]I don't get this argument, because without obsidian to begin with you wouldn't even have Bethesda's fallout. It's weird that so many people forget how hard bethesda clung to the old fallouts factions and lore in fallout 3[/QUOTE] So? It doesn't change the fact that Obsidian would never of had the opportunity to create a Fallout, especially one that looked like New Vegas without Bethesda, their engine, and the efforts they put in revitalizing the IP. I'm not trying to take sides either way; if anything I'm arguing Bethesda gets a ridiculous amount of shit put on their plate whereas Obsidian is treated as gold. It doesn't work like that.
[QUOTE=xalener;49108976]Fallout New New Orleans plz[/QUOTE] Honestly Fallout New Orleans would be pretty cool to see.
I'd be okay with a new obsidian game as long as Chris Avelonne or whoever came up with the stupid shit like tunnelers and Ulysses isn't on board. New Vegas introduced a lot of new things to the lore that I really don't like (the securitrons being nearly overpowered, the tunnelers being world ending death machines, M16s and other 1960s weapons that don't have much of a place in Fallout since it breaks the divergent aspect, the overly sophisticated eyebot AI) because it felt a bit out of place or just too broken related to the rest of the lore. Stuff like DT and ammo systems were poorly implement imo due to weird design decisions, and only served to be annoying in my own playthroughs of the game : - DT was basically a fun killer that would get in the way, having enemies arbitrarily resist a full shot to the chest because an arbitrary, unshown value was too high and my gun couldn't get through it. It made some enemies stupidly strong, and would cause the randomized enemy gear to be a danger by itself since an enemy that always spawns at the same place and at the same time would end up being impervious to your bullets if you happen to roll with him wearing slightly better armor than usual or a helmet or anything of the sort. - Ammo Types was a good idea but ultimately felt like a very secondary feature since these ammo types could not be found anywhere in the world other than merchants who would only sell them in microscopic doses (rarely ever saw a merchant carry more than ten bullets of a specific ammo type with him that wasn't the useless bulk or surplus ammo). Nobody other than the player could use them so it eventually felt like a solution to the balance issues brought up by DT as it allowed players to have an emergency way to get through some enemy with a DT that's a bit too high. You couldn't even find the damn things in the mojave anyway. - The disguise system was obnoxious as it basically gets in the way and creates a very tedious mechanic where you have to constantly swap back and forth depending on which faction you pick, and instead of bringing any negative faction reputation up to neutral it resets the faction to neutral even if you're on good terms, meaning that people straight up don't recognize you even if you've been helping them for a while. This combined with the shoddy AI and the dumb guard dog/officer system means that outfits would usually come with a lot of savescumming and not a lot of fun. If they do make a new one they should also take lessons from Bethesda and make the faction system based on the actual story and not on an arbitrary value, so you actually start getting attacked by enemy factions when it makes sense within the story, not at an arbitrary point driven by a single value going down after you shot someone in the middle of the desert with no one else being here to witness it.
[QUOTE=Ganerumo;49163651]I'd be okay with a new obsidian game as long as Chris Avelonne or whoever came up with the stupid shit like tunnelers and Ulysses isn't on board. New Vegas introduced a lot of new things to the lore that I really don't like (the securitrons being nearly overpowered, the tunnelers being world ending death machines, M16s and other 1960s weapons that don't have much of a place in Fallout since it breaks the divergent aspect, the overly sophisticated eyebot AI) because it felt a bit out of place or just too broken related to the rest of the lore. Stuff like DT and ammo systems were poorly implement imo due to weird design decisions, and only served to be annoying in my own playthroughs of the game : - DT was basically a fun killer that would get in the way, having enemies arbitrarily resist a full shot to the chest because an arbitrary, unshown value was too high and my gun couldn't get through it. It made some enemies stupidly strong, and would cause the randomized enemy gear to be a danger by itself since an enemy that always spawns at the same place and at the same time would end up being impervious to your bullets if you happen to roll with him wearing slightly better armor than usual or a helmet or anything of the sort. - Ammo Types was a good idea but ultimately felt like a very secondary feature since these ammo types could not be found anywhere in the world other than merchants who would only sell them in microscopic doses (rarely ever saw a merchant carry more than ten bullets of a specific ammo type with him that wasn't the useless bulk or surplus ammo). Nobody other than the player could use them so it eventually felt like a solution to the balance issues brought up by DT as it allowed players to have an emergency way to get through some enemy with a DT that's a bit too high. You couldn't even find the damn things in the mojave anyway. - The disguise system was obnoxious as it basically gets in the way and creates a very tedious mechanic where you have to constantly swap back and forth depending on which faction you pick, and instead of bringing any negative faction reputation up to neutral it resets the faction to neutral even if you're on good terms, meaning that people straight up don't recognize you even if you've been helping them for a while. This combined with the shoddy AI and the dumb guard dog/officer system means that outfits would usually come with a lot of savescumming and not a lot of fun. If they do make a new one they should also take lessons from Bethesda and make the faction system based on the actual story and not on an arbitrary value, so you actually start getting attacked by enemy factions when it makes sense within the story, not at an arbitrary point driven by a single value going down after you shot someone in the middle of the desert with no one else being here to witness it.[/QUOTE] Again, you're still wrong about many of these things. If you didn't hit the DT threshold then you shot isn't ignored, it's just that you only do 20% of the damage you were going to do which means it's totally possible to kill something with a high DT. Enemies also typically don't have a DT that's higher than any damage the player can dish out. The DT range of the most common enemies goes from like 0-12 where weapons as early as the Cowboy Repeater and 10mm pistol do 32 damage and 22 damage respectively. Also there was a perk that showed an enemies' maximum health and DT if you really needed it. Randomized armor is also not really a thing, or at least it's not a problem. Enemies that weren't low-level target practice carried pretty uniform gear with very low DT deviation (aside from some higher-level boss characters), if you went back to a spawn point (should mention that Obsidian mostly avoided using spawn points but I'm just speaking hypothetically here) multiple times and got the sum of everyone's DT, it'd probably be the same. For example: meatbag enemies like the Vipers or Fiends wore shit like clothing and light armor and typically didn't even hit above 6 DT. NCR armor for grunts were all 10 DT with the only deviation being high-level troops like Rangers (even some these guys just worse straight up clothing) and Heavy Troopers. I liked the DT system. It added a little bit more depth to the gameplay by giving both High DPS Low Damage weapons and Low DPS High Damage weapons their own strategic value. Shotguns were no longer the 'go-to kill everything gun' as they'd be next to useless against armored targets while using buckshot but absolutely murderize low armored targets. So if you wanted your High DPS weapons to be effective against armored targets, you'd have to plan ahead and craft AP ammunition. Not to mention that the DT system feels a little bit less silly than straight up resisting a percentage of damage. Fallout 4 would actually benefit more from a DT system too. Seeing as level caps are infinite, damage dealt and HP can only go up, whereas DR must must [I]must[/I] cap out at a certain number. So you'll find yourself at a point in the game where there is no reason to improve your armor past a certain point as it won't actually affect anything and any new armor added from DLC will either be worse, or just on-par with whatever armor you have already (a problem that can easily be seen in TES). However, like health and damage, DT is also a value that can infinitely scale and addresses many of the problems i just presented. I find it annoying that you put the ammunition system in a bad light by saying 'it was the easy fix for the DT system' when it I'd argue that it was like, yknow, an actual design decision. If the Devs found heavy faults with the DT system they'd be more likely to scrap it all together than to make a new ammunition system. While I'll agree that HP ammo is kind of useless, it was a step in the right direction by adding a strategic layer to the combat. It rewarded those who stay prepared by crafting (the best type in the game could be crafted if you didn't feel like looking for ammo vendors) Hand-Loaded Ammo (should also mention that ammo crafting gave crafting a practical and common use that's not just making new niche weapons) or by seeking out vendors that sold specialty ammunition in large quantities (yes folks, they made the merchants other than the vendortron useful.) That's why they didn't dot it around the wasteland, they wanted the player to use their own initiative to improve their chances in combat. While it does require some touching up in places, it definitely improves upon the depth in Fo3's combat. On the disguise system: I never actually used it, I just never found any reason to. I get why they might've included it but I personally just don't care to use it.
Getting a 80% damage penalty because you wanted to use a cool gun instead of using whatever shit looking gun you had that had good stats (which covers a lot of guns in new vegas, the better they get the worse they tend to look) isn't fun nor is it interesting.
[QUOTE=Ganerumo;49164270]Getting a 80% damage penalty because you wanted to use a cool gun instead of using whatever shit looking gun you had that had good stats (which covers a lot of guns in new vegas, the better they get the worse they tend to look) isn't fun nor is it interesting.[/QUOTE] That's a pretty stupid reason to criticize a game. They give you the means to use those 'cool guns' if you wanted to if you just chose the right perks and ammo types. Also what guns are you even talking about in particular. The more modern looking weapons that you complained about are actually less effective at penetrating DT than the cooler cowboy sluggers and retro-greeble space guns. [editline]22nd November 2015[/editline] You've criticized almost everything about NV but all you've proven to me is that you don't understand/personally like half the game. I'm sorry that the majority of fans prefer one game over your personal favorite, but just accept the fact that you don't like a game that everyone else likes. Not because it's a bad game, but because you just don't like it.
[QUOTE=Ganerumo;49164270]Getting a 80% damage penalty because you wanted to use a cool gun instead of using whatever shit looking gun you had that had good stats (which covers a lot of guns in new vegas, the better they get the worse they tend to look) isn't fun nor is it interesting.[/QUOTE] are you seriously using GUN GRAPHICS as a basis for why the game sucks get real
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