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ROGULIKES:MAKES DYING FUN!
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Hey everyone! shout out to kentona for bringin' me here. It's nice to see there's still so many people interested in RPGmaker. I remember using the ol' rpg2k back in the day, and getting totally immersed in trying to see what i could make it do. it was a lot of fun. Anyway, on to the topic:
Since we ALL seem to enjoy the 'old school,' i'm thinkin we should take it back a little MORE old school, and take it to the hard core. Anyone who's just gotten familiar with Etrian Odyssey will have a nice intro here. For those of you who don't know what a roguelike is (btw, thanks for coming into my thread) I'll explain:
The term roguelike comes from a old game way back that was simply ascii characters, you, the hero, just sort of wandered around a dungeon, plunging deeper and deeper, collecting things and killing monsters to gain exp, trying to find the whatsit at the bottom, and then trying to get the heck out of there before something eats you - which i assure you is no small feat even for a veteran. That was their humble beginnings. One of the variants you've probably heard of that's slightly newer is Diablo and Diablo 2. most roguelikes don't go so far into the graphics though, they tend to go deeper on gameplay. most still sport ascii graphics, but have graphic tiles as well.
These games are pretty darn addictive, despite the fact that most people will die about 30 times an hour before making it past level 5 of whatever dungeon you're in. what sucks people in, though, is the total RANDOMNESS inherent in every roguelike. you'll NEVER play the same game twice, and there's just so much to do and discover. I remember when i first thought of kicking a sink in nethack, a diamond ring came out! i was so surprised, i decided to keep kicking it, until this brown sludge monster came out and killed me. i was slightly more conservative with my kickings after that. Anyway, there's a HUGE variety of roguelikes out there today, each with it's own unique flavour, from tolkien, to amber, anime, norse, mech fighting, banana plantation, etc etc. I've spent quite some time ammasing what I consider some of the cream of the crop when it comes to roguelikes, though i don't my descriptions do them justice...
Anyway, if I've managed to entice some of you, great! One of the best places to start your adventuring is with a roguelike called Nethack. it's pretty easy to google, but i'll give you lazy bastards a link anyway. www.nethack.org if you find you don't like the tiles embedded in game already, you can download larger tiles from their site.
If you guys are still interested, i'll come on later and give you a list of my fav's (i don't have it on me ATM)
sorry if it was tl;dr, by the way.
(PS: maybe if you guys REALLY want, i could rar up my collection and share it someplace... but i don't have a rapidsh*t account, so that's effort that will have to wait.)
Since we ALL seem to enjoy the 'old school,' i'm thinkin we should take it back a little MORE old school, and take it to the hard core. Anyone who's just gotten familiar with Etrian Odyssey will have a nice intro here. For those of you who don't know what a roguelike is (btw, thanks for coming into my thread) I'll explain:
The term roguelike comes from a old game way back that was simply ascii characters, you, the hero, just sort of wandered around a dungeon, plunging deeper and deeper, collecting things and killing monsters to gain exp, trying to find the whatsit at the bottom, and then trying to get the heck out of there before something eats you - which i assure you is no small feat even for a veteran. That was their humble beginnings. One of the variants you've probably heard of that's slightly newer is Diablo and Diablo 2. most roguelikes don't go so far into the graphics though, they tend to go deeper on gameplay. most still sport ascii graphics, but have graphic tiles as well.
These games are pretty darn addictive, despite the fact that most people will die about 30 times an hour before making it past level 5 of whatever dungeon you're in. what sucks people in, though, is the total RANDOMNESS inherent in every roguelike. you'll NEVER play the same game twice, and there's just so much to do and discover. I remember when i first thought of kicking a sink in nethack, a diamond ring came out! i was so surprised, i decided to keep kicking it, until this brown sludge monster came out and killed me. i was slightly more conservative with my kickings after that. Anyway, there's a HUGE variety of roguelikes out there today, each with it's own unique flavour, from tolkien, to amber, anime, norse, mech fighting, banana plantation, etc etc. I've spent quite some time ammasing what I consider some of the cream of the crop when it comes to roguelikes, though i don't my descriptions do them justice...
Anyway, if I've managed to entice some of you, great! One of the best places to start your adventuring is with a roguelike called Nethack. it's pretty easy to google, but i'll give you lazy bastards a link anyway. www.nethack.org if you find you don't like the tiles embedded in game already, you can download larger tiles from their site.
If you guys are still interested, i'll come on later and give you a list of my fav's (i don't have it on me ATM)
sorry if it was tl;dr, by the way.
(PS: maybe if you guys REALLY want, i could rar up my collection and share it someplace... but i don't have a rapidsh*t account, so that's effort that will have to wait.)
Welcome to RMN Hexatona.
I, for one, would like to try out other roguelikes. Diablo & Diablo II are among my favorite games of all times.
I, for one, would like to try out other roguelikes. Diablo & Diablo II are among my favorite games of all times.
(b~_^)b hey, howzit goin'.
Now that I have a minute or two, (compared to the 30 seconds i had when i made the gigantic post at the top..?) I'll go back into Roguelikes 101: My favourite thing about roguelikes is basically theres more ways to DIE than to LIVE. Ragnarok (link later), one of my all time fav's with static quests around norse mythology around a random environment, always gave me a few laughs:
"You have chosen to eat the corpse of the fire beast"
"The fire beast is made of lava"
"lava is bad for you"
"you die"
or
"The sorcerer says something strange!"
"you feel a weird sensation"
"you turn into a bear!"
"your rings cut off your fingers!"
"your armor crushes you!"
"you die"
and i remember another time when the sorcerer turned me into a walking tree. Or the time I finally figured out how to kill one of the demons in Nifelheim that would normally turn me insane every couple of turns.
Actually, Ragnarok is the only roguelike I've ever managed to pass. Even the creator of Nethack has only Ascended about 8 times. nethack is OLD, but it's a great place for everyone to start. These games are hard, long, gruelling, nigh impossible, addicting, reward resourcefullness, random, vast, and have infinite replayability. You want a better explanation? look it up in wikipedia.
Let's see, which ones to tell you about today...:
Ragnarok. this one, as I said, is norse based, AND has a mouse based interface, which is great for beginners who are put off my the many keys required for roguelikes. I'm pretty sure you'll want to download the guide for this one as well, it makes things easier. one tip: become a sage at the beginning, even though they're weakest. being able to rewrite scrolls is awesome. and if the slywerts in the forest are giving you grief, get a scroll of extinction and wipe them from the face of the game.
hmm, the site this is hosted at is down. JUST the reason i hunt these things down and keep them... that's okay, you can download it from here: www.the-underdogs.info as well as it's Valhalla variant, which apparently includes sounds, but i could never get it to work. actually, this site is a great way to not only find roguelikes, but all sorts of games that you may have loved in your hayday which are now abandoned. or you could get it here hassle free: http://members.chello.at/theodor.lauppert/games/ragnarok.htm
So, what else to show you...
3059: http://people.umass.edu/jvight/3059/
this game is just awesome. your goal? none. you basically wander around, exploring the new planet in all directions. I like to find underground tunnels and dig out a secret base for myself which I use to mount attacks on towns that don't seem to like me. currently not being updated, but that's okay bacause it's finished anyway.
finally, for this round is T.O.M.E. or Tales of middle earth. www.t-o-m-e.net
obviously Tolkien based, this thing is EPIC, and one of my favs. basically your goal is to kill Morgoth, but that's many miles away, my friend. tons of races, classes, skills, weapons, enemies. it's truly mind boggling.
anyway, enough of my fanboyness for now.
Now that I have a minute or two, (compared to the 30 seconds i had when i made the gigantic post at the top..?) I'll go back into Roguelikes 101: My favourite thing about roguelikes is basically theres more ways to DIE than to LIVE. Ragnarok (link later), one of my all time fav's with static quests around norse mythology around a random environment, always gave me a few laughs:
"You have chosen to eat the corpse of the fire beast"
"The fire beast is made of lava"
"lava is bad for you"
"you die"
or
"The sorcerer says something strange!"
"you feel a weird sensation"
"you turn into a bear!"
"your rings cut off your fingers!"
"your armor crushes you!"
"you die"
and i remember another time when the sorcerer turned me into a walking tree. Or the time I finally figured out how to kill one of the demons in Nifelheim that would normally turn me insane every couple of turns.
Actually, Ragnarok is the only roguelike I've ever managed to pass. Even the creator of Nethack has only Ascended about 8 times. nethack is OLD, but it's a great place for everyone to start. These games are hard, long, gruelling, nigh impossible, addicting, reward resourcefullness, random, vast, and have infinite replayability. You want a better explanation? look it up in wikipedia.
Let's see, which ones to tell you about today...:
Ragnarok. this one, as I said, is norse based, AND has a mouse based interface, which is great for beginners who are put off my the many keys required for roguelikes. I'm pretty sure you'll want to download the guide for this one as well, it makes things easier. one tip: become a sage at the beginning, even though they're weakest. being able to rewrite scrolls is awesome. and if the slywerts in the forest are giving you grief, get a scroll of extinction and wipe them from the face of the game.
hmm, the site this is hosted at is down. JUST the reason i hunt these things down and keep them... that's okay, you can download it from here: www.the-underdogs.info as well as it's Valhalla variant, which apparently includes sounds, but i could never get it to work. actually, this site is a great way to not only find roguelikes, but all sorts of games that you may have loved in your hayday which are now abandoned. or you could get it here hassle free: http://members.chello.at/theodor.lauppert/games/ragnarok.htm
So, what else to show you...
3059: http://people.umass.edu/jvight/3059/
this game is just awesome. your goal? none. you basically wander around, exploring the new planet in all directions. I like to find underground tunnels and dig out a secret base for myself which I use to mount attacks on towns that don't seem to like me. currently not being updated, but that's okay bacause it's finished anyway.
finally, for this round is T.O.M.E. or Tales of middle earth. www.t-o-m-e.net
obviously Tolkien based, this thing is EPIC, and one of my favs. basically your goal is to kill Morgoth, but that's many miles away, my friend. tons of races, classes, skills, weapons, enemies. it's truly mind boggling.
anyway, enough of my fanboyness for now.
I've yet to really get into a Rogue style RPGs. Probably because my first kiss with the genre was 'Time Stalkers' for the dreamcast. And it left a chalky, metalic and ever so slightly toxic taste in my mouth.
I expect if/when I try Etrian Odyssey, the genre will inspire the respect in me that its heritage commands.
I expect if/when I try Etrian Odyssey, the genre will inspire the respect in me that its heritage commands.
Chocobo's Dungeon was the first Roguelike I ever played that I ever really realized was a Roguelike.
Although I am positive I have played a varied cornucopia of ASCII art based Roguelikes in my youth.
They are fun, but get old fast.
Although I am positive I have played a varied cornucopia of ASCII art based Roguelikes in my youth.
They are fun, but get old fast.
I agree, that can happen, especially with so many other COMMERCIAL games coming out all the time that it seems you don't have enough time to play some game with no story and you die all the time.
There are some nice features that help you out though, in this regard - the fact that there IS no story makes it pretty easy to pick it up after god knows how long, and it saves wherever you are. plus, although it's mostly cheating, you can copy your save data in case you die, so you don't have to start all over.
Another way this is combatted is by the some of the great diversity I've seen in roguelikes. Sure, it's easy to get bogged down by the like billion angband or Zangband variants, but there's some pretty neat ones I'll tell you about right now!
One of my other favourites is called I.V.A.N. this takes place on a banana plantation. it's the only roguelike I know of where you can finish the game by taking someone's left nut. that's just one of the possible ways to finish it mind you. it's pretty high up on the nice graphic tiles, and you can wield pretty much anything, lose a limb only to harden it and put it back on. etc. I.V.A.N. stands for some latin that means "short road to death" because of it's sheer unlikeliness of killing the final bosses. NOt only that, but this game scales itself to how strong you are. Get it here: http://ivan.sourceforge.net/ btw, there's a forum there, but it's inactive. there's a more active one someplace, but I forget where.
This one is very highly acclaimed, even though it pushes the limit of what I believe is a roguelike. Dwarf Fortress (as it's comes to be called) is basically you controlling a handfull of dwarves trying to make a new home, and eventually a sprawling city with a huge population! you basically set tasks that need to be done, and eventually your dwarves will get around to it. it's still in the alpha stages, but the dwarf fortress part is working great. there's an adventure mode for standard roguelike folk, but it's mostly just wandering around killing things for now. expect more on that front later. 110% recommend.
www.bay12games.com/dwarves/
Finally, for now, I'm going to mention Gearhead. It's pretty open ended in what you can do, and has you playing as a normal peron, or you can climb into a giant robot and duke it out with other robots. you can have some pretty hilarious conversations with the townsfolk too. There's even two versions! standard ascii, and an isometric version with some pretty impressive images. also, there's a gearhead 2 coming out, but i havn't played it yet. Get stuff here:http://gearhead.roguelikedevelopment.org/
edit:(POST SCRIPT: for those of you who crave t3h 3D's, there's a REALLY good roguelike in the theme of Diablo called Fate. really easy to mod, too. i saw lightsabers, clouds sword, etc... unfortunately, you have to pay for it (unless you're a big cheater) and while normally you'd just DL it from the site, I've seen it at a few Walmarts. you have to LOOK for it though)
There are some nice features that help you out though, in this regard - the fact that there IS no story makes it pretty easy to pick it up after god knows how long, and it saves wherever you are. plus, although it's mostly cheating, you can copy your save data in case you die, so you don't have to start all over.
Another way this is combatted is by the some of the great diversity I've seen in roguelikes. Sure, it's easy to get bogged down by the like billion angband or Zangband variants, but there's some pretty neat ones I'll tell you about right now!
One of my other favourites is called I.V.A.N. this takes place on a banana plantation. it's the only roguelike I know of where you can finish the game by taking someone's left nut. that's just one of the possible ways to finish it mind you. it's pretty high up on the nice graphic tiles, and you can wield pretty much anything, lose a limb only to harden it and put it back on. etc. I.V.A.N. stands for some latin that means "short road to death" because of it's sheer unlikeliness of killing the final bosses. NOt only that, but this game scales itself to how strong you are. Get it here: http://ivan.sourceforge.net/ btw, there's a forum there, but it's inactive. there's a more active one someplace, but I forget where.
This one is very highly acclaimed, even though it pushes the limit of what I believe is a roguelike. Dwarf Fortress (as it's comes to be called) is basically you controlling a handfull of dwarves trying to make a new home, and eventually a sprawling city with a huge population! you basically set tasks that need to be done, and eventually your dwarves will get around to it. it's still in the alpha stages, but the dwarf fortress part is working great. there's an adventure mode for standard roguelike folk, but it's mostly just wandering around killing things for now. expect more on that front later. 110% recommend.
www.bay12games.com/dwarves/
Finally, for now, I'm going to mention Gearhead. It's pretty open ended in what you can do, and has you playing as a normal peron, or you can climb into a giant robot and duke it out with other robots. you can have some pretty hilarious conversations with the townsfolk too. There's even two versions! standard ascii, and an isometric version with some pretty impressive images. also, there's a gearhead 2 coming out, but i havn't played it yet. Get stuff here:http://gearhead.roguelikedevelopment.org/
edit:(POST SCRIPT: for those of you who crave t3h 3D's, there's a REALLY good roguelike in the theme of Diablo called Fate. really easy to mod, too. i saw lightsabers, clouds sword, etc... unfortunately, you have to pay for it (unless you're a big cheater) and while normally you'd just DL it from the site, I've seen it at a few Walmarts. you have to LOOK for it though)
Not sure if people are still interested or not, but I'll continue on nonetheless. This time I think I'll stray a bit further from the ol' cliche of hackin' n' slashin', and bring you some of the more interestingly themed variants I've come across.
This one's pretty fun, and most of you will probably enjoy it: Animeband. It's based on one called Angband, which still has some active variants going on. Basically, it's gotten overhauled with news races and classes, adding limit breaks, cosplaying, and mechs i think. just plain fun! plus the androids get nukes.
http://angband.oook.cz/animeband
There's also a Discband for those interested in Discworld, and all of their hilarious characters. Not sure how heavily modded it is, but it's interesting anyway.
http://www.thangorodrim.net/discband.html
How cool is this - DooMRL is a doom themed roguelike, with all the guns, ammo, medpacks, barrels, and demons you know and love. even has music and sound effects! Actually, while I'm on the subject of this one, this seems to have (originally) been made in seven days, and later added onto. There's actually a lot of interesting rogues built in seven days, then later added onto after the competition. I've seen ZeldaRL, MetroidRL, CastlevaniaRL, BerserkRL, DiabloRL, AliensRL, and more. These are usually pretty fun since they try to change things up a bit from regular rogues. metroid has all the powerups and abilities, zelda has the same kinds of dungeons as in the other games, and pretty much all of them have music, and soundeffects. You can find the links on your own - too many to find.
Finally, for now, is Steamband. yes, another angband variant. This is for those of you who love Steampunk genres. you can be a british officer, or an automaton, and things are all victorian like. er, i think so... apparently fairly popular.
http://angband.oook.cz/steamband/steamband.html
most of the time, these are a bit MORE than just name changes and tweaks to angband, so check-em out. ...am i annoying yet?
This one's pretty fun, and most of you will probably enjoy it: Animeband. It's based on one called Angband, which still has some active variants going on. Basically, it's gotten overhauled with news races and classes, adding limit breaks, cosplaying, and mechs i think. just plain fun! plus the androids get nukes.
http://angband.oook.cz/animeband
There's also a Discband for those interested in Discworld, and all of their hilarious characters. Not sure how heavily modded it is, but it's interesting anyway.
http://www.thangorodrim.net/discband.html
How cool is this - DooMRL is a doom themed roguelike, with all the guns, ammo, medpacks, barrels, and demons you know and love. even has music and sound effects! Actually, while I'm on the subject of this one, this seems to have (originally) been made in seven days, and later added onto. There's actually a lot of interesting rogues built in seven days, then later added onto after the competition. I've seen ZeldaRL, MetroidRL, CastlevaniaRL, BerserkRL, DiabloRL, AliensRL, and more. These are usually pretty fun since they try to change things up a bit from regular rogues. metroid has all the powerups and abilities, zelda has the same kinds of dungeons as in the other games, and pretty much all of them have music, and soundeffects. You can find the links on your own - too many to find.
Finally, for now, is Steamband. yes, another angband variant. This is for those of you who love Steampunk genres. you can be a british officer, or an automaton, and things are all victorian like. er, i think so... apparently fairly popular.
http://angband.oook.cz/steamband/steamband.html
most of the time, these are a bit MORE than just name changes and tweaks to angband, so check-em out. ...am i annoying yet?
EDIT!!
I wrote about the following game at www.brandonabley.com after being inspired to by the following forum post. Please check it out!
POST:
I appreciate Roguelikes, but I only enjoy graphical "light" roguelikes. The serious, hardcore stuff is intimidating and I don't think they are very fun!
My favorite is Lost Labyrinth, a German-developed homebrew game that is fairly popular. I was ranked #300 or something on their online leaderboards at one time! It's constantly under revision and nobody knows when it will be finished. Most of the graphics are taken from RPG Maker 95.
One of the major themes is that you will always be trying to conserve light and food -- if you don't create a character that has a reliable way of generating light (is able to move great distances before torches burn out or can generate magical light) or food (can conjure food or butcher animals), you'll be in a lot of trouble. Generally, you will get through a game of Lost Laby in under a half hour, and you can Ascend within a few hours of starting. You probably will not though.
It's my favorite Roguelike because it has decent homebrew-quality graphics, snappy controls (works great with a joypad), and is fairly forgiving once you've figured the game out. It's pretty fun to tweak one or two features of the character you've created each time you die until you've made the perfect character. Also, since many character skills aren't useful until you get very far into the dungeon, you'll find that as you get better at the game, you'll find more use for obscure abilities. Very cool and I highly recommend it if you find Roguelikes a little too hardcore.
Official site: http://www.lostlabyrinth.com/
Here is a screenshot:

I wrote about the following game at www.brandonabley.com after being inspired to by the following forum post. Please check it out!
POST:
I appreciate Roguelikes, but I only enjoy graphical "light" roguelikes. The serious, hardcore stuff is intimidating and I don't think they are very fun!
My favorite is Lost Labyrinth, a German-developed homebrew game that is fairly popular. I was ranked #300 or something on their online leaderboards at one time! It's constantly under revision and nobody knows when it will be finished. Most of the graphics are taken from RPG Maker 95.
One of the major themes is that you will always be trying to conserve light and food -- if you don't create a character that has a reliable way of generating light (is able to move great distances before torches burn out or can generate magical light) or food (can conjure food or butcher animals), you'll be in a lot of trouble. Generally, you will get through a game of Lost Laby in under a half hour, and you can Ascend within a few hours of starting. You probably will not though.
It's my favorite Roguelike because it has decent homebrew-quality graphics, snappy controls (works great with a joypad), and is fairly forgiving once you've figured the game out. It's pretty fun to tweak one or two features of the character you've created each time you die until you've made the perfect character. Also, since many character skills aren't useful until you get very far into the dungeon, you'll find that as you get better at the game, you'll find more use for obscure abilities. Very cool and I highly recommend it if you find Roguelikes a little too hardcore.
Official site: http://www.lostlabyrinth.com/
Here is a screenshot:

Awesome! I only recently found lost labyrinth myself, but you're right, it's a lot easier to pick up and play. it actually feels a lot like rpgmaker games, so yuo'll all feel at home.
I remember we had a sort of contest going on in #rm2k with Lost Labyrinth. I briefly had the highest score at the very beginning. Then everyone else sort of blew right past me. Alas!
It feels like a rpgmaker game because it has fricking rpgmaker sprites. Which takes away a lot from the credibility of the game. I know this is controversial... but...
Thumbs down.
Thumbs down.
author=rcholbert link=topic=199.msg2788#msg2788 date=1187989544Isn't it RTP, too? Wouldn't be so bad if it were just really low res custom spritings.
It feels like a rpgmaker game because it has fricking rpgmaker sprites. Which takes away a lot from the credibility of the game. I know this is controversial... but...
Thumbs down.
author=Tribal Tail link=topic=199.msg2790#msg2790 date=1187996697
Isn't it RTP, too? Wouldn't be so bad if it were just really low res custom spritings.
RPG95 RPT FTW!
Hmm, i mostly just thought it had a rpgmaker feel do the the spirites and the way you move in-game. I don't really mind that it's taken sprites and stuff from thr rtp, none of these roguelikes are for profit, and sprites are taken and used everywhere nowadays anyway.
I'm wondering if anyone had a chance to pick any of these up and try playing them? what did you think? was it too hard, or did it keep you interested? were there too many commands to remember? if you tried a few games, which did you like most? Why? Which the least, and why?
Recently, I tried playing MetroidRL, and I really enjoy it. I mentioned it ealrier, I think, but I've just been playing it as a nice and easy break from the rest of the rogues.
I think my favourites would be a toss up between I.V.A.N. for it's humour, Graphics, scalability, and originality - and Ragnarok, for it's class switching, mythology, quests that take you the whole game to finish, and just plain so many things to do. you can try and kill Jormungand the World Serpent (although it's pretty unlikely - downright impossible), even tunnel your way to the bottom of the world and foolishly walk off! travel forwards and backwards through time, and it has a nice mouse based interface.
What do I like the least? well, i happen to like all of the ones I recomended to you, and there's plenty of others I know of that I didn't mention for good reason, I guess the one I'm least likely to play is Steamband - I just never got used to the classes and races and stuff, and (to me anyway) there's more interesting variants than steampunk. It's pretty popular, and I can see how it's pretty innovative though, from when I did play it, so don't think it's not a good game.
I'm wondering if anyone had a chance to pick any of these up and try playing them? what did you think? was it too hard, or did it keep you interested? were there too many commands to remember? if you tried a few games, which did you like most? Why? Which the least, and why?
Recently, I tried playing MetroidRL, and I really enjoy it. I mentioned it ealrier, I think, but I've just been playing it as a nice and easy break from the rest of the rogues.
I think my favourites would be a toss up between I.V.A.N. for it's humour, Graphics, scalability, and originality - and Ragnarok, for it's class switching, mythology, quests that take you the whole game to finish, and just plain so many things to do. you can try and kill Jormungand the World Serpent (although it's pretty unlikely - downright impossible), even tunnel your way to the bottom of the world and foolishly walk off! travel forwards and backwards through time, and it has a nice mouse based interface.
What do I like the least? well, i happen to like all of the ones I recomended to you, and there's plenty of others I know of that I didn't mention for good reason, I guess the one I'm least likely to play is Steamband - I just never got used to the classes and races and stuff, and (to me anyway) there's more interesting variants than steampunk. It's pretty popular, and I can see how it's pretty innovative though, from when I did play it, so don't think it's not a good game.
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