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Speaking of GroupMe and plans, since LotR Trivia is NO MORE at the Colts Grille on Wednesday, where will enterprising goons decide to meet on Wednesday night?
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Feb 2, 2017 17:13
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Also, we should have an album of advertisements for failed/dying games that we see at GenCon. I particularly miss the Navia Dratp picture, because it's full of bluster and says absolutely nothing about the game other than... It happened.
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Feb 2, 2017 17:16
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Haystack posted:I got 12:15pm! Hey, I also got an early time, but not as early as yours (12:42pm). I don't need the reservation (as I already have one), but could someone explain to me how I'd make it for someone else without running the risk of being on the hook for hundreds of dollars that I don't need to spend to hold the room and (hopefully) get reimbursed?
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Feb 12, 2017 00:23
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Fellis and I came to an arrangement where he'd use my account to get my sweet portal access time and he'd take care of all the deets on his end. Never needed to put my card up or check in to make sure I was making the 'right' reservation. I'm really glad GenCon does not store/handle a lot of sensitive information. There's some, but you can mitigate it.
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Feb 12, 2017 19:20
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CyberGeist posted:Is there such a thing as a GenCon God? The Random Number God gives and takes. Next year you'll wind up with 12:01am. Edit: I should probably make a brief guide to GenCon housing, especially if they're going to continue with the system next year.
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Feb 13, 2017 17:01
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Ugh. I don't know what compelled me to do this, but here's the quintessential GenCon Housing Guide based upon both my experiences and those of other goons in this thread for TYOOL 2017. Let me know if you think I missed anything major. Edit: I realize it's kind of late, but I want to keep it around for next year. As I won't be attending next year, I'll be more than happy to leave it in the care of another goon to update after Housing Portal: GenCon 51 Edition. They will likely be unable to resist jiggering with how it works considering the outpouring of salt. LuiCypher fucked around with this message at 18:37 on Feb 13, 2017 |
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Feb 13, 2017 18:15
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Texibus posted:I think it refers to actually grabbing one, but that doesn't mean they won't cancel in a month and then it frees up on the block. This is true, but I guess this means that if you didn't get your choice housing now, you're likely turbofucked for being downtown. In the past, they did drop some inventory from the VIG block that vigilant watchers could snag, but now they've more or less kicked that away.
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Feb 14, 2017 00:57
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Maybe I'll write a reminder later, but once companies start announcing their board games for debut: Don't get Plaid Hat's newest game I know, I know. It's very tempting. They're very good at overhyping their products! But they never, ever bring enough inventory to GenCon and the VIGs will buy out their entire stock before their doors even open on Thursday. It will leave you feeling a little angry. Just use the time and wait for reviews of the game to start popping up (especially on the Board Games thread) and hold off on buying it until you're sure you really want it.
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Feb 14, 2017 23:32
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Bottom Liner posted:Oh yeah, the intersection in front of Steak & Shake with the literal sewage leak was so bad I literally gagged and a cop laughed My wife has experience in wastewater and sewer engineering, so last year when I complained about the smell she explained to me in great detail why it's an extremely difficult problem to solve. Why? Everybody hates the smell, but nobody likes the solution of 'well, we've got to shut down this intersection and other parts of the road for a few months to a year, and maybe more depending on the state of the sewer when we find it. In the meantime, we've got to build more tunnels to divert the flow while we...' Then, suddenly, nobody cares about the smell once they realize the solution interrupts their commutes.
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Feb 17, 2017 16:06
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I will be trying to run some Delta Green for Arc Dream this time around. It will likely be nothing original since I'll have a difficult time creating and planning out something that can be run in 4 hours (i.e., I need to create a concept that I can playtest and run before the con), but they have plenty of content they've already created that I can run in that time frame.
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Mar 21, 2017 15:40
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Northern Virginia Gamers has the most unfortunate acronym.
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Apr 28, 2017 15:32
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Dr. Quarex posted:Edit: Eat poo poo GamerGate scum 
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May 1, 2017 23:26
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fordan posted:I wasn't. Even trying to play it straight, it still sucked unless you got one of the major roles. After I got shut down by the staff member for the one thing that popped on the newsfeed that was actually in my bailiwick ("Oh no, that would have to be done by the Politboro" for an internal counterintelligence issue when I was supposed to be the head of the KGB directorate dealing with counterintelligence), I left and started sending pictures to the Goon GroupMe of Comrade RumnCoke with my KGB badge from the hotel bar. You're making me feel like I need to corral up some University of Chicago Model UN folks to show them how to run one of these simulations. In college, the UChicago MUN Conference was nothing but Crisis Committees (which are basically a bunch of mini-NSDMs).
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May 9, 2017 15:07
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RocknRollaAyatollah posted:I'm running a Delta Green game (https://www.gencon.com/events/113955) and a Trail of Cthulhu game (https://www.gencon.com/events/111847). I am going to try like hell to get into this. I considered volunteering for Arc Dream, but I wanted to run Kali Ghati at least once personally before volunteering for them (with any luck, I'll be able to run it this weekend).
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May 15, 2017 15:37
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One thing I have noticed at cons/gamedays, both local and the Gen Con variety, is the following with regards to RPGs. Call of Cthulhu -  Trail of Cthulhu - Delta Green - 
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May 16, 2017 18:21
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Fellis posted:What system is delta green? Google tells me its Xcom meets cthuhlu, is it just a setting? I vaugely remember it being an Apoc world hack. The new edition is basically Call of Cthulhu with some quality of life improvements from Trail of Cthulhu. It's still a d100 roll under system, but in the course of investigation the GM can give you better clues if you have certain skills over a percentage threshold. For example, if you're checking out a crime scene and you have Forensics at 60%, the GM can give you additional clues to represent your expertise - no need to roll. Some of the printed adventures even have multiple thresholds - someone with Forensics at 30% will pick up this clue, but someone at 60% will pick up both that clue and another one. You generally only roll for things that have consequences for failure/you are in a stressful situation. In addition, while you have one sanity score you have two sanity 'tracks' - violence and helplessness. Through the course of play, you can become accustomed to both. There are generally two ways to play Delta Green. One is that you're an official government conspiracy (XCOM 1). The other is where DG is a rogue organization (XCOM 2). Regardless, people shouldn't know anything about what it is that you're doing. Nemesis Of Moles posted:I signed up to a couple delta green games this year, I did last year too but I didnt get in any of them I played The Star Chamber last year with the guy who's running the Delta Green LARP this year, and we didn't have a full house for our session so Perhaps I will run a goon group this year? 
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May 16, 2017 21:32
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Apparently there's a Delta Green LARP this year. I thought about volunteering for it, but it was a pretty big time commitment. I met the guy who's running it (he GM'd my Delta Green game last year) and I think he's got a great head on his shoulders. He also runs LARPs pretty regularly, so I'm confident he knows how to make it work well.
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May 26, 2017 16:35
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LLSix posted:Sounds good to me. I read somewhere that vendors will run free demo games too so we're thinking about not signing up for many board game events. True or False? It's true! That's how I discovered Tragedy Looper. For the most part though, demo games are abridged versions of the games (basically enough to get you on your feet if you play it for yourself). Just don't wait for Plaid Hat. The people there will tell you that they insist on their demos being full games. I actually suspect it's part of their marketing pitch, because people get really dumb when they have to wait for something. If people are waiting for it, it has to be good, right?
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May 26, 2017 20:13
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Hot Tip for those wanting to buy THE NEW HOTNESS at GenCon: Don't. In more words, you shouldn't because: 1. VIGs will likely buy them out during their special shopping hour they get before the whole shebang begins. 2. VIGs will likely gouge you for the privilege of buying it from them. 3. Your FLGS is going to have it shortly after you get back anyways, and you should let the MSRP support your store instead of the manufacturer/sweaty VIGs.
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Jun 8, 2017 18:16
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8one6 posted:The VIG-salt is pouring in from the Gen Con forums I see. Also I'll be happy to revise that by stating that last year, before regular attendees even stepped foot into the hall, VIGs bought every copy of SeaFall. You could not buy it if you had a regular badge - they were all gone basically before the con even started. I will also say that this is not entirely the fault of the VIG program. I would argue that most of the blame falls on suppliers deliberate under-supplying (like a toy manufacturer) to create excess demand and driving hype. Plaid Hat is almost always guilty of this and (surprise surprise) they published SeaFall. Case in point, Stonemaier brought a lot of boxes of Scythe with them, and even though it was a hyped and well-reviewed game they were able to meet the demand. I remember that they always held onto some so they had copies available to sell every day of the con.
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Jun 8, 2017 19:21
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8one6 posted:SeaFall was sold out 5 minutes after those doors opened for early entry because they only brought 10 copies. I mean, I'm sorry that you didn't get to flip it on eBay for $500 and had to wait two months for it, but that poo poo's on pladhat. FFG deliberately makes the launch time of a Gen Con release noon to eliminate any potential VIG/Tradeday sell out.  If you read what you quoted, I'm saying I fundamentally agree with you on this point? I just felt bad that literally no one but VIGs/Tradeday folks had a shot at it because :Plaid Hat: and that seeing it happen killed my interest in the game. It does demonstrate a negative consequence of the program, however, in that it creates/reinforces the idea that you must be this VIG to ride. I'll even say that it's not the fault of the program and is definitely the fault of the manufacturer, but that's not how your average con-goer is going to see it. When you feel like you need to be VIG to have a shot at something and then you find out you have no shot at being VIG, people are going to get salty.
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Jun 9, 2017 15:01
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Dr. Quarex posted:I like that you can sort by session and see that even TOVA has valuable things sometimes! In 2016, someone sold THE PRIMIERE SEASON OF XENA WARRIOR PRINCESS on 12 VHS tapes for $7. Reading what they sold at TOVA is a good, albeit weird, time.
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Jun 20, 2017 15:48
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Sloober posted:Really wierd Hey, it's a good way to make money.
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Jun 21, 2017 17:09
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Dr. Quarex posted:Maybe. We are in uncharted territory here. Just hope nobody comes through checking badges. I have only seen it once, but I also have only been playing in a tabletop game that crossed the Midnight border once, but a dude definitely wandered into our gaming room and checked everyone's badges. Made extra-delightful by the fact that our GM did not have a badge as it was a huge multi-table game and he had just popped over to help run the game or something and suddenly we had no GM. But having no badge is a touch harder to talk your way out of than being in a game that started on a day you did have one. EDIT: BRAIN-FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAART. Yeah, you had more important things last year. LuiCypher fucked around with this message at 19:53 on Jul 7, 2017 |
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Jul 7, 2017 18:20
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Hope your badge is good for all four of those days - if not, fix that soon or you're gonna have a bad time  Edit: And by that I mean you won't be able to buy badges for those days - they already sold out of four-day badges, and individual days are creeping much closer to that point with alarming speed.
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Jul 21, 2017 19:55
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He has written a great deal of Battletech fiction over the years, maintaining his role as a writer even as Battletech made the rounds to several different companies. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blaine_Pardoe
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Jul 28, 2017 16:31
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Altogether, my small group (four) is bringing: - Mansions of Madness - Pandemic: Legacy - Legendary: Big Trouble in Little China (I want Rob Heinsoo to sign this) - Star Trek Ascendancy - MtG - Archenemy: Nicol Bolas - Tragedy ROOPER + Expansions I'll also bringing some RPG-related stuff (but buying most on-site), and with an hour or two of prep I would be willing to run Kali Ghati (Delta Green) for a group of friends+goons.
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Aug 15, 2017 18:46
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Deviant posted:Counterpoint: Tom Vasel is a homophobic dickweasel and can choke on his own vomit. Additional Point: He also has bad taste, or more precisely, bad standards in what makes a game good. Just ask the board gaming thread.
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Aug 24, 2017 16:10
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16 hours of D&D? TIME TO DRINK MY OWN PISS.
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Aug 25, 2017 23:14
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I managed to playtest/demo two interesting games at Gen Con. One was Wrestlenomicon, a 2-player card game by Arc Dream - Rob Heinsoo is the designer. I really liked it. Some of the names for attacks are absurdly silly (Hastur has an attack called 'Say My Name Three Times') but I really like the momentum system (attacks appear on the momentum track in various places according to their 'speed' and further attacks also have a value that allows you to move cards closer to completion) because it feels like a fight. I mean, you're telegraphing the moves of deities the size of buildings and allowing for the opportunity to show a really big attack that you either move slowly or rush to completion, and it's all public knowledge. In addition, the last attack you successfully land can be used against you if your opponent lands an attack that 'punishes' that kind of attack. It's really cool, and I'm Kickstarting it the moment it goes up. I also really respect Shane Ivey, because he told me that he wouldn't feel comfortable asking for more money in a kickstarter until they deliver the Case Officer's Handbook for Delta Green. The second game was a somewhat-secret Cowboy Bebop game. The reason why it's somewhat of a secret is because the potential publishers don't have the rights firmly in hand - they want to get the game as far along to completion as they can, show it to the rights-holders as proof of concept, and get greenlit to Kickstart. Also, my friend asked a whole shitload of vendors about it because a Cowboy Bebop picture appeared on a publisher's booth, but there was nothing related to it there. It was truly a passion project for him to track it down and have us play it - which we paid to do via generics. For rights-related reasons, we couldn't take pictures of the game. At any rate, I would call it Firefly minus the suck with a lot of inspiration from Battlestar Galactica in terms of card mechanics (but nothing involving traitors). It is a straight co-op game. One potential flaw of the game is that it demands four players - you play as the crew of the Bebop (Jet, Spike, Faye, and Ed) tracking down and scoring bounties in order to get money... which you will promptly spend on food, because HOLY poo poo do you run out of food quickly. At the beginning of everyone's turn, you draw an event card. The events are about equally good and bad, with some of the good events allowing you to play a card to get an additional (or different) benefit. Nevertheless, nearly every goddamn event tells you to spend one food. As you can probably guess, running out of food is Bebop's primary enemy - which is pretty true to the show. The reason why I say it demands four players though is that every player has 10 cards that represent different 'skills' - Hacking, Combat, Piloting, and Investigation. Naturally, every character has a varying amount of each type of card. For example, I think Ed has four Hacking cards, two dual Hacking and Investigation cards, one Investigation card, two Piloting cards, and one Combat card. Just like in the show, Ed's super-awesome at Hacking but does little to no good in combat. When called for, you can spend these cards a la Battlestar Galactica to clear conditions for checks, which will require either one or different combinations of skill cards. In addition, although characters may have cards of the same skill, they have different effects when played as part of your actions for the turn or when you fulfill specific conditions - much like Battlestar Galactica cards. Faye might have a Combat card that, when played before chasing a bounty, the team will get additional money when you successfully catch them. Ed's Combat card (Feral Child) can be played to ignore spending food as part of an event card on her turn. No character shares card effects, though there are some similar themes (i.e., when interacting with a location, spend this card to gain an additional effect). These ten cards remain constant - as you spend them, you put them aside and stack them so that the most recently used card is on top. To refresh your hand, you spend an action to take the top two off the top of the pile - meaning that if you spend a particularly valuable first but don't refresh it until later, it take a lot of work to unbury it. The core of the game revolves around navigating the board, gathering leads for where bounties might show up, and chasing the bounties. However, chasing bounties is really just a means to stay alive - to win the game, characters need to complete all three Acts in their 'session', which are themed after certain character arcs/stories in the show. Fulfilling sessions requires characters to spend the required skill cards as part of a check as well as fulfill certain conditions - one of Ed's Acts requires the Bebop to be in Jovian space before they can engage in the check on their turn, while one of Faye's requires her to be alone on the Bebop. Oftentimes, meeting the requirements of sessions checks requires a lot of cards - however, players who are at the same planet can assist each other in any and all skill checks they might need to make. This makes teamwork a powerful advantage, as you can strategize how you spend cards and how you'll replenish them to you hand to ensure that you can make skill checks and help other make checks on their turns as well. However it doesn't do for the team to stay clumped up together - as you visit locations on planets, they become 'used' and you need to visit ALL four locations on a planet before they can be used again. Oftentimes, this represents a huge inefficiency in action economy as character might spend their actions using locations they don't need to use, like grocery when you have no money, spaceports when you have no money, bars when you don't need to refresh your cards (but the last location, which allows you to draw contacts, remains pretty useful because they're how you locate bounties). To avoid this, Jet, Spike, and Faye can take their personal ships out to travel to other planets and locations by spending Fuel - but by doing so, they can't expect help from the other players. Ed has no ship but the Bebop, but even if the crew 'maroons' her she has a card that allows her to remote control the Bebop back to her so she can get on it again. There's a lot more granularity to the game that I could explain (how tracking down bounties via leads works, etc.), but the core takeaways are: - The game matches the theme very well. - The characters' differing strengths and weaknesses makes playing them feel unique. - The game delivers in terms of tension and making meaningful decisions. In addition to running out of food, another failure state is letting the Session tracker count down to zero (which you can only replenish by completing your Acts on your session cards, so the game tries to push you along to the victory state instead of staying in the failure spiral of catch bounties -> get food). - Quarterbacking could still a bit of an issue (as it is in all co-ops), but the fact that the game state can change rapidly from your turn to your next one means it often becomes more of a collaborative decision-making process, and characters' unique abilities would require severely spergy levels of game mastery to start dictating to other players what they need to do. - It has an Ein card, it is special, and it is amazing. Ein is a wild card that any character can spend any time they need to make a check - he counts as Hacking, Combat, Pilot, and Investigation. Once used, he goes right into that character's discard pile, only able to be used again once he's refreshed. - Fun fact: Ed has a card that allows her to fish Ein out of any discard pile no matter how deep he is and make him available again. They're such good friends. - It passed the critical check among my group of four - we had fun playing, and we're really hopeful they'll score the license and Kickstart the poo poo out of it.
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Aug 27, 2017 15:49
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I gotta ask the real burning question that we're all dying to know about Gen Con 50: How was Tom Cruise's Thighs?
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Aug 27, 2017 21:01
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RocknRollaAyatollah posted:That Hampton is great and they do a great job with the continental breakfast. I stayed there this year and it was an all around enjoyable experience. It's a solid place, to be certain. I've stayed there for two cons, and I agree that they put a lot of effort into the continental breakfast around Gen Con time. Can't complain about waffles! Edit: WerrWaaa posted:I don't mind walking a few blocks to save money, but i definitely want to not commute. In my insanity back in February, I feel like I addressed the housing issue quite comprehensively. Admittedly I could probably add more details about transportation/parking if you do not wind up in one of the fabled downtown hotels. Take a look if you've got the time. LuiCypher posted:Ugh. I don't know what compelled me to do this, but here's the quintessential GenCon Housing Guide based upon both my experiences and those of other goons in this thread for TYOOL 2017. Let me know if you think I missed anything major. LuiCypher fucked around with this message at 21:04 on Sep 6, 2017 |
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Sep 6, 2017 20:56
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