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Spincut posted:Oh okay. I guess I never really have pledged to a board game KS. Most of my pledges have been to RPGs. I've pledged to all sorts of stuff and I don't think any of it's ever really turned out to be much of a savings other than the handful of RPG Kickstarters that piled on free stretch addons. And although that still costs them money and time, it's usually only free in digital form, which is effectively zero cost for distribution, whereas boardgames obviously involve printing and shipping costs by their very nature.
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Jan 28, 2014 02:46
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Spincut posted:Oh okay. I guess I never really have pledged to a board game KS. Most of my pledges have been to RPGs. That's why I generally wait until the last 48 hours of a campaign before backing (unless there's a really good "early pledge" discount tier). There are campaigns that look so-so when they launch, but right at the end when all the stretch goals are piled on, they suddenly look much more attractive.
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Jan 28, 2014 02:47
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Goredema posted:That's why I generally wait until the last 48 hours of a campaign before backing (unless there's a really good "early pledge" discount tier). There are campaigns that look so-so when they launch, but right at the end when all the stretch goals are piled on, they suddenly look much more attractive. It's usually the games heavy on miniatures with that effect though, like Zombiecide, Bones and Bones 2, Deadzone, Robotech  and Rivet Wars, because they have the most to offer in terms of physical game items that can be free bonuses. A worker placement game isn't really adding all that much by offering another 5 bags of free meeples, for example.
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Jan 28, 2014 03:21
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What happened with Robotech?
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Jan 28, 2014 04:00
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Cassa posted:What happened with Robotech? Still in production. Apparently the minis are in the final stages of being designed for actual molds. Palladium is saying "Spring 2014", but they've always had a casual relationship with release dates.
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Jan 28, 2014 04:12
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Alien Rope Burn posted:Still in production. Apparently the minis are in the final stages of being designed for actual molds. Palladium is saying "Spring 2014", but they've always had a casual relationship with release dates. They're still getting prototypes back, which means everything is not at the manufacturer. Chinese New Year is coming up, and good loving luck getting plastic minis made from China until Late February if they aren't done now.
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Jan 28, 2014 04:25
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Feeple posted:They're still getting prototypes back, which means everything is not at the manufacturer. Chinese New Year is coming up, and good loving luck getting plastic minis made from China until Late February if they aren't done now. Yeah, the Chinese New Year is almost certainly going to put the project on hold, but they've at least acknowledged that.
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Jan 28, 2014 04:30
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Why does Chinese New Year halt production for so long? Is it customary to take a bunch of vacation time for New Year's over there? I legit don't know anything about the holiday.
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Jan 28, 2014 04:36
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Chinese factory workers live in factory dormitories. They save up all year in order to pay for a trip to see their families, often in the country, because it's their one chance a year to do so.
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Jan 28, 2014 05:14
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There's a great documentary on Netflix called the Last Train Home that goes into Chinese New Year in detail. It's the largest human migration in history - over 130 million traveling great distances to see their families.
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Jan 28, 2014 05:47
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Humbug Scoolbus posted:I'm still waiting on Up Front!, Alas Vegas, And Hillfolk has arrived 
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Jan 28, 2014 05:57
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Alien Rope Burn posted:Yeah, the Chinese New Year is almost certainly going to put the project on hold, but they've at least acknowledged that. They haven't acknowledged it yet, they only said it might cause delays if they don't get things done in time (which they clearly haven't), after they went to the backers and told them about a week before the promised original delivery date that they hadn't even finished writing the rules or prototyping all the minis yet and had completely missed their manufacturing window in 2013, despite promising every update for 6 months that the rules were done, and the minis almmost done, and just waiting final approval. Palladium's updates are nothing but lies, obfuscation and blame shifting - so far blaming the sculptor Ninja Division, Harmony Gold, and the workers of China for sabotaging them with this new years nonsense - and as it stands there's not a remote chance of getting anything before June, 6 months past the original delivery date, and that's if everything goes perfectly from today onwards. Which it won't. NTRabbit fucked around with this message at 06:40 on Jan 28, 2014 |
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Jan 28, 2014 06:27
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This is all true. My brain just tends to interpret "Siembieda admits dates may slip" as "Siembieda admits dates will slip", because he usually denies even the possibility anything will run late until well after the fact. "Maybe" is the closest thing you'll get to an admission out of Palladium. Compare this to the latest crowdfunded Rifts book (Northern Gun Two) which is running a year late now with no admissions... but it's scheduled for release in February, and certainly will not manage to slip again, I'm sure. About the best thing that can be said is that their previously crowdfunded efforts have mostly seen release (though they've also been horrendously late), but the Robotech minis are far more ambitious that perhaps any product Palladium's ever put out before, so the risk is much higher with an already risky company.
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Jan 28, 2014 06:54
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Yeah, the Robotech updates suddenly became very unprofessional a couple weeks ago. I felt bad enough that Harmony Gold was getting a cut, but now I've got rapidly rising dislike for Palladium. The big red flags were firstly that they started off with "hey guys, you're totally still getting your stuff, believe us," which I would have normally just chalked up to catering to the folks that would read only the first couple lines and then go freak out on forums or comments. The other one is that they keep talking about adding or changing the designs on the battle pods and valks being the hold up: but those are the two models that they had in physical form prior to the kickstarter going up. Why would they just now be getting the initial 3D prints for models they've had in hand for nearly a year? Edit: Unless I missed something major, aren't these resin minis? So the mold making process is nowhere near as involved or expensive as cutting the steel molds for plastic. SpikeMcclane fucked around with this message at 07:01 on Jan 28, 2014 |
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Jan 28, 2014 06:59
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Swagger Dagger posted:I got my hardcopy of Golden Sky Stories + bonus material today, it is the best. Same, had to cut mine out of the shipping box because it was way over taped up though. Still looks great and I love the game.
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Jan 28, 2014 07:58
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Kwyndig posted:Same, had to cut mine out of the shipping box because it was way over taped up though. Still looks great and I love the game. That's been a trend with Kickstarter stuff I've been getting lately. That said, I prefer overtaped to undertaped.
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Jan 28, 2014 12:46
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SpikeMcclane posted:Edit: Unless I missed something major, aren't these resin minis? So the mold making process is nowhere near as involved or expensive as cutting the steel molds for plastic. No, every single unit in Robotech was promised in the Ks to be made from ABS hard plastic - which means that all of these 3D printed prototypes they're showing us, not to mention the ones who haven't gotten that far yet, still need molds cut with weeks of precise machining, checking, more precise machining and final approvals before they can reach manufacture. Palladium is a choking clusterfuck and I wish I'd known this before I backed.
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Jan 28, 2014 12:57
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NTRabbit posted:No, every single unit in Robotech was promised in the Ks to be made from ABS hard plastic - which means that all of these 3D printed prototypes they're showing us, not to mention the ones who haven't gotten that far yet, still need molds cut with weeks of precise machining, checking, more precise machining and final approvals before they can reach manufacture. Palladium is a choking clusterfuck and I wish I'd known this before I backed. I was so close to back this, to get the awesome minis they posted.
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Jan 28, 2014 13:40
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lilljonas posted:I was so close to back this, to get the awesome minis they posted. There's nothing wrong with the minis, they look awesome, the problem has been the lies and delays from Palladium, and there are still question marks over whether or not the rules are going to be any good, since they are now being written by Siemdieda, and not Ninja Division as was originally stated when the project launched. They refuse to release a beta test of them, instead they have after a lot of pushing created some closed testing groups under a strict NDA. In less poo poo minis news, the Mars Attacks! survey was launched today, and the second Deadzone survey comes later this week. So many add ons still to buy in both. I... uh...  fortunately the completion and charge dates of each are separated by months.
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Jan 28, 2014 13:51
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To be honest, Kickstarting miniatures seems like even more of a gamble than other gaming products simply because there are so many potential points of failure for things to spiral out of control of even the most well-intentioned designer let alone someone like Palladium. I mean, it's not that it's impossible to pull it off, Reaper Bones was a rousing success among other examples, but I'd feel really, really wary of backing a miniatures project that isn't coming from someone with a rock-solid reputation backing them up.
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Jan 28, 2014 13:51
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Kai Tave posted:To be honest, Kickstarting miniatures seems like even more of a gamble than other gaming products simply because there are so many potential points of failure for things to spiral out of control of even the most well-intentioned designer let alone someone like Palladium. I mean, it's not that it's impossible to pull it off, Reaper Bones was a rousing success among other examples, but I'd feel really, really wary of backing a miniatures project that isn't coming from someone with a rock-solid reputation backing them up. And the first Reaper Bones had some pretty big problems, too.
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Jan 28, 2014 13:55
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Kai Tave posted:To be honest, Kickstarting miniatures seems like even more of a gamble than other gaming products simply because there are so many potential points of failure for things to spiral out of control of even the most well-intentioned designer let alone someone like Palladium. I mean, it's not that it's impossible to pull it off, Reaper Bones was a rousing success among other examples, but I'd feel really, really wary of backing a miniatures project that isn't coming from someone with a rock-solid reputation backing them up. I tend to apply a lot more scrutiny to someone making an entire minis game with multiple armies than I do someone just kickstarting a single set of figures for use in other games, but yeah, you just need to do your research and take calculated risks as with anything you back, and not give in to nostalgic urges like I did with Robotech. The only other minis I've backed have been two from Mantic, who while not without QA problems have not failed to deliver, a 15mm historicals from someone who had also successfully delivered a previous project, and likewise Bones 2. I don't think minis are inherently more likely to fail than any other tabletop or video game, I think the problem is you're almost always gambling more money in them per person than the others. A basic buy in on a video game is $15-25, on a board game $50-80, but your basic minis buy in is $50+ and so easily turns into hundreds of dollars just for a few more figures, without even getting close to the silly "your real life pet as an in game pet" and "signed wooden storage box" that the other two offer for those dollars.
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Jan 28, 2014 15:35
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NTRabbit posted:There's nothing wrong with the minis, they look awesome, the problem has been the lies and delays from Palladium, and there are still question marks over whether or not the rules are going to be any good, since they are now being written by Siemdieda, and not Ninja Division as was originally stated when the project launched. Wow, where'd you hear Siembieda is now doing the rules? If so, that's dire news for kickstarter backers. Ninja Theory's demos seemed bland to me, but at least functional. 
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Jan 28, 2014 15:35
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Alien Rope Burn posted:Wow, where'd you hear Siembieda is now doing the rules? If so, that's dire news for kickstarter backers. Ninja Theory's demos seemed bland to me, but at least functional. October 25th update lists Carmen Bellaire of Palladium as the co-author of the rules. Is that the sort of title that sounds familiar to you? Palladium took over the rules writing as soon as the funding period ended, and it's just been generally assumed that the rules won't leave the building without the micro-managing king rewriting them and putting his name at the top.
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Jan 28, 2014 15:48
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I didn't believe for a second that Palladium would stay on as a mere middleman or consultant, thinking back to that infamous Bill Coffin rant. Tried to warn a friend away, but she took the kickstarter outline as presented. Now she's just hoping something comes out of the whole circus.
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Jan 28, 2014 16:08
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Doctor_Shadow just linked me this: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/wordstudio/project-dark On the one hand: it's Thief: the RPG and isn't shy about it. It looks interesting, even if the cheatsheet looks pretty horribly packed with text. On the other: Will Hindmarch's last KS I backed (Always/Never/Now) ended up delayed a lot, although it did eventually make it out. More importantly, there's no rules preview at all.
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Jan 28, 2014 16:41
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Lemon Curdistan posted:On the other: Will Hindmarch's last KS I backed (Always/Never/Now) ended up delayed a lot, although it did eventually make it out. More importantly, there's no rules preview at all. That first part doesn't bother me so much; many RPG kickstarters are one person jobs and the delivery date is often fairly arbitrary. If all of the RPG Kickstarters added a year to their expected delivery date people would be praising them for punctuality (or releasing early) even while getting their books months later, rather than the current state of affairs where being a bit late leads people to storming the gates and calling their private investigators. No rules preview, particularly for a game concept (stealth) that nobody's ever really done right? That would make me hesitant.
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Jan 28, 2014 16:45
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Mutant Chronicles 3rd Ed. just went live. https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/modiphius/mutant-chronicles-3rd-ed-rpg Modiphus did/is doing a great job with Achtung! Cthulhu, so I'm stoked for this one.
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Jan 28, 2014 16:49
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Mikan posted:That first part doesn't bother me so much; many RPG kickstarters are one person jobs and the delivery date is often fairly arbitrary. Yeah, that's why that's not a big deal for me as having 0 rules preview. You don't even get one for pledging, there won't be beta rules released until after the KS is over. That's nuts.
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Jan 28, 2014 16:59
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NTRabbit posted:October 25th update lists Carmen Bellaire of Palladium as the co-author of the rules. Is that the sort of title that sounds familiar to you? That doesn't necessarily mean Siembieda is doing the writing. He certainly may have taken it over, and that sort of crap wouldn't surprise, but we don't know that for certain. Honestly, Palladium is hinky enough even without jumping to conclusions. For example, one name you won't hear in regards to the Robotech RPG Tactics design is Thomas Roache, the Robotech fan who originally pushed for the idea of a miniatures game and presented the idea to Palladium in the first place. Of course, he's been pushed aside and been reduced to a cheerleader. I don't know if the original ruleset he did was worth a drat, but the project wouldn't exist without him... and he's likely to go entirely uncredited from the looks of things.
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Jan 28, 2014 17:07
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Alien Rope Burn posted:That doesn't necessarily mean Siembieda is doing the writing. He certainly may have taken it over, and that sort of crap wouldn't surprise, but we don't know that for certain. It's Palladium. Of course we know it for certain, unless Kevin Sembieda recently underwent a total personality shift when nobody was looking. This isn't "jumping to conclusions" so much as "making an accurate prediction based on established history."
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Jan 28, 2014 17:17
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Kai Tave posted:It's Palladium. Of course we know it for certain, unless Kevin Sembieda recently underwent a total personality shift when nobody was looking. This isn't "jumping to conclusions" so much as "making an accurate prediction based on established history." You may be shocked to find out there have been books written by other authors at Palladium, then. I mean, if you want to talk established history.... Siembieda meddling and micromanaging? Plenty of tales of that sort of behavior. Siembieda taking over writing his first new ruleset in three decades? Well, that's never happened before, but there's a first time for anything.
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Jan 28, 2014 17:35
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Well that's what I meant. I fully expect that someone else will write the first draft, then Kevin will come in as "editor," find tons of "flaws" with it, and nobly accept the heavy burden of revising it, somehow managing to both pay the original writer less and give himself more credit in the process. Siembieda doesn't have to be the first and only guy to work on things, just the last.
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Jan 28, 2014 17:43
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There's a discussion about Palladium starting on page 76 of the "how not to run a game business" thread, and a discussion specifically about the way Siembieda runs Palladium beginning on page 20 of the TG As An Industry thread. Siembieda's terribleness is well known to TG, and I feel sad if anyone in here gave his company money without knowing about it. Let's talk about it there if you want.
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Jan 28, 2014 18:35
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Leperflesh posted:Siembieda's terribleness is well known to TG, and I feel sad if anyone in here gave his company money without knowing about it. Let's talk about it there if you want. Folks are always welcome to bring it over to The Palladium Gigathread as well. 
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Jan 28, 2014 19:02
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NTRabbit posted:No, every single unit in Robotech was promised in the Ks to be made from ABS hard plastic - which means that all of these 3D printed prototypes they're showing us, not to mention the ones who haven't gotten that far yet, still need molds cut with weeks of precise machining, checking, more precise machining and final approvals before they can reach manufacture. Palladium is a choking clusterfuck and I wish I'd known this before I backed. I feel a bit better about the minis that way. Just getting 3d prints now still sounds BS at first, but it's probably that these are done with parts separation (maybe the whole sprue, wouldn't be the first time I'd seen that for a 3d print of what's intended for plastics) same as the molds will be, then that makes sense. NTRabbit posted:October 25th update lists Carmen Bellaire of Palladium as the co-author of the rules. Is that the sort of title that sounds familiar to you? I'm in it for the minis anyways, so if the game sucks, I'll just use them for something else.
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Jan 28, 2014 19:36
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Mikan posted:No rules preview, particularly for a game concept (stealth) that nobody's ever really done right? That would make me hesitant. Ouch.  I like Will, I like his previous work, and I'm interested in stealth RPGs even when done badly. On the other hand, no rules preview, mention of detailed maps, and I've already made the stealth RPG I want. I'm tempted, but... 
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Jan 28, 2014 20:36
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Swagger Dagger posted:I got my hardcopy of Golden Sky Stories + bonus material today, it is the best. Mine came today, it's a legit great little book. Soft cover and flexible but still well built. Great production values.
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Jan 28, 2014 20:37
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Lemon Curdistan posted:Doctor_Shadow just linked me this: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/wordstudio/project-dark The wording on his backer levels is a bit unclear, but if I'm reading this right, the Paper Books level (the first level offering the physical book) just gives you a coupon to buy the book at an unspecified price/discount? That seems awfully strange if that's the case.
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Jan 29, 2014 04:38
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InShaneee posted:The wording on his backer levels is a bit unclear, but if I'm reading this right, the Paper Books level (the first level offering the physical book) just gives you a coupon to buy the book at an unspecified price/discount? That seems awfully strange if that's the case. Probably a full discount coupon to whoever will handle shipping, and then you have to pay for shipping. It's not a bad idea for an independent author to farm that part of the fulfilment out.
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Jan 29, 2014 05:01
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