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May 29, 2023 05:51
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exquisite tea posted:I'd at least be more open to the idea if it wasn't the most "who asked for this" AC protagonist yet. I have no idea who the protagonist is but the setting and hints at more options for assassinations make it look far more interesting than Valhalla.
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May 29, 2023 06:01
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I might have respected metaplot but recently I've replayed Unity. Do you remember how metaplot wraps up in Unity? It doesn't. The last time you hear anything from modern people is when they send you into a medieval siege set piece 3 missions before the end. When the story of Arno ends you get zero acknwoledgement from modern people.
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May 29, 2023 07:10
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Unity's complete disregard for the metaplot is one of the things I like about it. Sure beats Syndicate bringing back Sean loving Hastings.
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May 29, 2023 07:51
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I liked the element of the metaplot that created stakes for why you are diving into these memories. There's a prize that everyone is chasing through time and having a gang that you actually interacted with in the Desmond games (after the first one) made those stakes more meaningful and real. You aren't playing random memories for purpose, you are sifting through them with purpose. Then they find the McGuffin and the game-within-the-game pays off. Conversely Layla is literally just sticking animus wires into random corpses when we meet her and doesn't really get better stakes across her trilogy.
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May 29, 2023 08:07
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Doctor Spaceman posted:Unity's complete disregard for the metaplot is one of the things I like about it. They say Mirage only has the intro and outro by Basim. This is probably what you want. Unity is not like that. The meta-plot interferes with the game like no other game (except probably AC3 where you had to go on a few real-world missions and jump around the temple and listen to a Chinese bootleg copy of Ancient Aliens). In Unity throughout the game you're forced to work around "collapsing simulation", the UI has constant reminders of animus like tearing and desynchronization. The fact that the game just forgets that metaplot existed by the end doesn't make it better, it's still bad but it's also sloppy, it's like they themselves didn't care at all. Everyone hates porn with the story, but it's even worse if the story is not resolved in the end and we never learn if the plumbing was fixed.
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May 29, 2023 11:53
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The story was fun was when it was about glowing orbs and magic pope staves and goofy alt history conspiracy stuff; once it started trying to make us care about the cybergods and remember who they were as characters it was all over for me
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May 29, 2023 14:58
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I was into the weird TRUTH thing they did in AC2 but iirc that lead to absolutely nothing.
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May 29, 2023 15:05
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The best aspect of the metaplot is the incongruous mashing up of detailed historical settings and weird sci-fi poo poo. Stuff like the Vatican having a secret alien technology chamber under it is a lot of the fun of the games for me. I don't particularly care what's going on with the Isu themselves, but I hope they keep that element at least.
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May 29, 2023 15:15
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Ainsley McTree posted:The story was fun was when it was about glowing orbs and magic pope staves and goofy alt history conspiracy stuff; once it started trying to make us care about the cybergods and remember who they were as characters it was all over for me Perhaps some people still wait for a glorious return of one of these ancient gods that was promised by the storyline of several games. They don't know it was resolved in a comic. But anyway I don't care much about all the ancient god stuff being more prevalent as long as they use it effectively to highlight the beliefs of specific cultures. Odyssey and Valhalla showed ancient aliens as gods cause this is how Greeks and Norse saw them, and it was really more about the Greeks and Norse more than any meta-plot. Skeezy posted:I was into the weird TRUTH thing they did in AC2 but iirc that lead to absolutely nothing. Well it revealed the existence of Isu as the creators of humankind. It also had a lot of conspiracy nonsense, some of which might be true, but it was written by a very disturbed character so probably not.
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May 29, 2023 15:21
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Skeezy posted:I was into the weird TRUTH thing they did in AC2 but iirc that lead to absolutely nothing. This kind of hinted that at some point we may get to assassinate a member of SCOTUS. Huge missed opportunity imo Alchenar posted:Conversely Layla is literally just sticking animus wires into random corpses when we meet her and doesn't really get better stakes across her trilogy. This is why AC Origins is the only truly successful modern entry to me. It's a fairly straightforward 'evil corporate employee gets in over their head, recruited by assassins after stumbling upon some closely kept secrets' type deal that works as a soft reboot and only flirts a little with ancient alien gods. Odyssey immediately squanders this by bringing ancient alien god wars and comic tie-in characters and important destinies back to the forefront, and then Valhalla is now stuck with being the conclusion to a story that never really got hashed out but is supposed to be yet another world-ending problem, so it kinda shrugs and goes "I guess Layla solves...climate change, or something? With...Desmond's digital ghost?"
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May 29, 2023 19:10
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Agreeing that worldwide conspiracy theory with light aliens is far superior than full on aliens. Also, the animus is more interesting if the user can only see their ancestors.
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May 29, 2023 19:33
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Wolfsheim posted:This kind of hinted that at some point we may get to assassinate a member of SCOTUS. Huge missed opportunity imo accidentally assassinating george washington in the prologue was the most fun I had in AC3 shouldve let you do it for real but i suppose they're bound by history. though there is the DLC
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May 29, 2023 19:36
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Ainsley McTree posted:accidentally assassinating george washington in the prologue was the most fun I had in AC3 i mean you kill cesare borgia in brotherhood though i guess it was done in a way such that it could be "explained" by the actual history
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May 29, 2023 19:51
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Layla's plot seemed to be repeating a lot of the beats of Shaun's story but as said with less stakes. Actually I'm not even sure what her story entirely is because I never played the DLCs for her games.
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May 29, 2023 21:10
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Mantis42 posted:Layla's plot seemed to be repeating a lot of the beats of Shaun's story but as said with less stakes. Actually I'm not even sure what her story entirely is because I never played the DLCs for her games. Playing the Odyssey DLC actually made me understand Layla's story less, somehow
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May 29, 2023 21:38
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Yeah I played through everything and don't have a clue.
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May 29, 2023 21:57
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Wolfsheim posted:Playing the Odyssey DLC actually made me understand Layla's story less, somehow Odyssey's DLC has very little to do with Layla (boy I've been spelling that wrong lol), it's more to do with Kassandra and Aleithea. Everything that happens to Layla is an example of what happens if Kassandra fails to learn what she needs to be the staff keeper over 2000 years than it is about anything else. It's also about Aleithea as a person, but Valhalla threw a lot of that away so who knows how that's meant to work.
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May 29, 2023 22:47
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I'm still in mid-Valhalla and the fairly minor intrusion of the metaplot is both a pro and a con, but playing the Asgard/Jotunheim/etc. DLCs is a reminder of just how they ultimately kind of fail it. Who were the Greek and Roman gods? Well, they were Isu. Okay, so who were the Norse gods? They were also Isu. So what does that make the Jotun? Also Isu! In fact, the Isu Ezio spoke to was one of the Jotun! Except none of the Jotun were actually Jotun, it's all just subjective mythological experience, so actually, all of this is unreliable narration which will be changed in every subsequent game just like we're doing now. It's sort of like they stopped exploring or resolving parts of the metaplot a half-dozen games ago and it's just been stapling bits and pieces on with each new game under the assumption that maybe they'll eventually do something with something.
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May 29, 2023 22:48
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I don't see a problem with this at all. These games immerse you into a historical setting. Part of it is showing you what people believed at the time. Using all the Isu stuff as an excuse to show myths is a good idea. You can argue about the quality of this presentation, but the idea itself is right.
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May 30, 2023 07:49
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ilitarist posted:I don't see a problem with this at all. Yeah I've never had any issue with the core nonsense ancient aliens stuff, I think it's actually a fun framing mechanic The modern metaplot sucks not because it's an inherently flawed idea, but because there's no real stakes since they've made it abundantly clear they'll never go anywhere with it Which doesn't actually preclude still doing interesting/fun stuff with it in the historical stories
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May 30, 2023 08:18
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Tbh it works for me that the different pantheons are just different civilizations of Isu.
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May 30, 2023 08:32
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The metaplot is a waste of everyone's time. Its a waste of time for the writers who are asked to find ways for it to continue, its a waste of time for the designers who have to flesh it out, and its a waste of time for the people who have to play through it. One question thats constantly with these games is "how long do the modern day segments last?" and the answer everyone wants to hear is "very little" because its all complete shite.
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May 30, 2023 09:06
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i mean it would be one thing if there was some actual gameplay in the modern day segments, i remember a bit of light platforming at least back in the days of 2 or brotherhood or something, but all there is to do in the modern day segments of valhalla is have a few annoying conversations and check emails. that's literally it. imo it would be cool if they used the modern day story to show how history has changed places. set the modern day segments in some of the same places as the historic segments so you can see what's changed and what's remained, how the architecture has been worn down or broken or rebuilt over time, that sort of thing. maybe even the modern day protagonist remembers some ancestral skills and pulls off an assassination in a crowded tourist district near some ruins or whatever! the last thing i want to be looking at is a loving laptop on a desk. Earwicker fucked around with this message at 09:38 on May 30, 2023 |
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May 30, 2023 09:31
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ilitarist posted:I might have respected metaplot but recently I've replayed Unity. Do you remember how metaplot wraps up in Unity? That's factually untrue like much of the criticism leveled at Unity. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rxk4yg7ycu4 The modern plot resolution begins at 16:50. ilitarist posted:
An interesting thing to do with that would be to point science/tech is the religion of our time and pew-pew soft sf makes up our dominating myths, which is why Desmond-Layla see the Isu and their works as ancient alien hypertech, but in reality they're completely unknowable Lovecraft beings, and we're no better at parsing them than dark ages yokels. But it's way too clever for that team of writers. Mirage looks pretty lame so far.
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May 30, 2023 10:46
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Kuiperdolin posted:That's factually untrue like much of the criticism leveled at Unity. Ok, but can you see that this is even worse? I didn't realize that the modern plot is concluded over the credits. You see that skip button in the lower left? It appears immideately and on its own, you don't have to press anything indicating you want to skip it. The voice starts talking after 15 seconds of player staring at the credits and the suggestive skip button. When I pressed the skip button I fully expected to see a post-credits scene wrapping it all up. How many players do you think heard that ending? If anything, Unity is overrated nowadays as the last "true" AC. It's still a buggy mess, it plays horribly and it's comparatively deep systems don't work and/or have no use case in the game.
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May 30, 2023 11:01
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Lotta Syndicate erasure in here
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May 30, 2023 11:05
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ilitarist posted:They say Mirage only has the intro and outro by Basim. This is probably what you want. The framing device of the Animus is prominent in Unity but the metaplot with the Isu and Juno etc isn't. I can take or leave the former but I only really like the later when it gets into stupid conspiracy bullshit like AC2, not fake-Ubisoft offices like in AC4. Earwicker posted:imo it would be cool if they used the modern day story to show how history has changed places. set the modern day segments in some of the same places as the historic segments so you can see what's changed and what's remained, how the architecture has been worn down or broken or rebuilt over time, that sort of thing. maybe even the modern day protagonist remembers some ancestral skills and pulls off an assassination in a crowded tourist district near some ruins or whatever! the last thing i want to be looking at is a loving laptop on a desk.
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May 30, 2023 11:23
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Orv posted:Lotta Syndicate erasure in here Yeah really. Syndicate was aces, classic asscreed doesn’t get much better. It took Unity’s framework and injected fun into it.
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May 30, 2023 14:09
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It's hard to say anything bad about Syndicate. It was fine, it had little ambition so it didn't do anything too wrong. Making all the original songs play only in taverns was a very dumb decision cause it's the best part of the game and you basically have no reason to go to taverns.
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May 30, 2023 14:55
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i enjoyed Synidcate, my only complaint is that all of the different parts of the city felt very "samey" and there wasn't even a like little bit of surrounding countryside for a break or anything. also, i feel like given the period, it should have been dirtier. like i thought 19th century london was supposed to always be under this heavy dark industrial fog, in the game it's too bright and cheery. personally my favorite of all the "one city" style AC games is still Brotherhood. the way you can see parts of the city change over the course of that game is cool too.
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May 30, 2023 16:40
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ilitarist posted:I don't see a problem with this at all. Yeah, if it wasn't clear the use of the concept is what bothers me, not the concept. I don't have any problem with using the Isu as an explanation for our collective myths, I have a problem with their having gotten a dozen games into the series without taking it any further or finding anything to do with it--that's my "stapling bits and pieces on" problem. It's twelve games in and "the Norse pantheon were Isu too!" is supposed to be a purposeful part of the plot, but it's the same exact plot beat they've been beating for a decade and a half and just finished doing with the entire Egyptian and Roman pantheons in the last two games; it winds up feeling like just as much of a fantasy metaplot framing devices as the modern metaplot framing device, and the degree to which they're both sort of stuck and motionless has bummed me out for awhile.
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May 30, 2023 19:13
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Earwicker posted:thats not really what happened tho. its not really that "everyone" is celebrating the classic style or that "everyone" lauded the open world rpg style, its more like there are different factions of fans. From what i understand, the combat and such plays like the new games, but the parkour and poo poo plays sorta like unity and etc. Earwicker posted:i enjoyed Synidcate, my only complaint is that all of the different parts of the city felt very "samey" and there wasn't even a like little bit of surrounding countryside for a break or anything. also, i feel like given the period, it should have been dirtier. like i thought 19th century london was supposed to always be under this heavy dark industrial fog, in the game it's too bright and cheery. my issue is the game just spins it wheels for alot of the plot and while i actually like the villian, he doesnt really do much. like origins is my favorite and the villians are mostly after thoughts to a degree but they are still sorta doing poo poo. CarlCX posted:I'm still in mid-Valhalla and the fairly minor intrusion of the metaplot is both a pro and a con, but playing the Asgard/Jotunheim/etc. DLCs is a reminder of just how they ultimately kind of fail it. i have never liked the "delve" into the myths poo poo, outside the weird side quests in odyssey and the origins dlc. like i genuinly like the eden artifacts do weird techno magic poo poo. but i hate the "lets go back to isu times but its like a animus with in animus but shittier and dumber and then nothing happens because none of it happened or mattered". their is a reason they ended the juno plot in the comics.
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May 30, 2023 20:15
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Earwicker posted:because the metaplot is only one aspect of the series and is pretty easy to ignore for the most part? yeah to me. AC works better as loosely connected group of anthology with some meta narrative and character connections through out. it works best when its "weird" time periods or outside the europian centric setting. though i liked syndicate and ezios adventures too.
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May 30, 2023 20:20
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The end of my second and final AC Valhalla playthrough is in sight and I noticed a few minute differences this time: -while I thought you had to do every other territory to unlock the main Sigurd/Basim ending, you can actually skip Vinland -if you never build Valka's hut and do the terrible Odin missions, instead of knowing a little about what's going on in the end Eivor will be completely ambivalent to the whole situation and assume Basim was just insane -if you play as 'dishonorably' as possible, kicking axes away from dying vikings and killing everyone you could've spared, no one really gives a poo poo or acts differently -if you don't sleep with Sigurd's wife before the ending but manage to stay friends with him, next time you approach the war room he'll be like "hey we got divorced so feel free to sleep with her guilt free now" So I'd say it was about....15ish minutes of different choices spread across a 100+ hour game? I'm still glad I went at it again as a male Eivor because his voice actor is substantially better than the female one with the whole softspoken warrior-poet angle. In my mind I was also really gonna go for it and get Excalibur and kill all the boss animals and everything this time but even with all territories completed there's so many blue dots I just...can't be bothered  . I think the Ireland and France DLCs were so incredibly bloated it sapped my will to explore (I didn't get the Odin DLC it looked bad).Now I'm speeding through the Odin bits because that, Vinland and that final battle against Aelfred are all that stand between me and whatever is supposed to happen that makes Eivor die in America. I can't wait!
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May 31, 2023 06:52
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Wolfsheim posted:-while I thought you had to do every other territory to unlock the main Sigurd/Basim ending, you can actually skip Vinland So the only parts of the story you can skip are the ones that actually have some relevance to the overall plot. Genius.
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May 31, 2023 07:09
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Wolfsheim posted:The end of my second and final AC Valhalla playthrough is in sight and I noticed a few minute differences this time: Stuff like this is why I think origins is probably the best one. Odyssey is good and probably better combat wise but origins world and quests just make me like the characters and world more. Bayek feels more naturally part of the world and it’s beliefs and stuff and his slow path from vengeance to something more is nice. Odyssey feels a little too meta at times for me. Valhalla had way to much wheel spinning
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May 31, 2023 12:08
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For as big a deal (with a matching price) Ubisoft made out of Ragnarok, anecdotally barely anyone seems to have played it.
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May 31, 2023 12:09
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Surely someone in this thread have played it and can tell us about it! I might have had some marginal interest in that, but then they released The Forgotten Saga for free. It was the only part of Valhalla that truly had some interesting gameplay (maybe also Orlog) but it also gave me a lot of Viking mythology, enough for me to never want any more.
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May 31, 2023 12:15
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Rinkles posted:For as big a deal (with a matching price) Ubisoft made out of Ragnarok, anecdotally barely anyone seems to have played it. Hi yes I did this thing. It’s not great. Some of the magical powers you get kinda stray into Shadow of War territory in terms of cool combat moves or a little bit of traversal but you have to manually refresh which ones you’re using when you want to change them out. Which means finding the right enemy to soul rip the power out of. If you’re a huge Nordic myth dork there’s some neat stuff in there, nothing too fantastic or anything. The interpretations of the Aesir and their enemies are pretty standard, probably not as well done as Dad of War, itself already pretty pop-y. Really the biggest problem is that because they don’t go far enough with the cool Odin powers and limit their use even still, environments and characters aside it’s just more Valhalla. A game that’s already exhausting before you tack another twenty to forty hours on.
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May 31, 2023 12:38
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