Bots / Farmers gone?

lldt · May 2016

In the past, the bots/farmers would just find something/somewhere else to farm, but it looks like the recent skill node change has succeeded in stopping them? Are we now pretty much bot/AD spammer free?

nps2 · May 2016

I don't think so. Just looking at the chat spammers and my mailbox leads me to believe they are still here and working as normal unfortunately. All the skill node nerf has done is make it basically useless to open any of them and make it much harder to get RP as I have not noticed ANY difference in the amount of enchantments, runestones, or any other RP mobs drop. BTW - I am using 2 Feys and 1 Hoard enchantment pre and post nerf. On a side note, I have only gotten 1 insignia drop from mobs since the nerf also.

lldt · May 2016

That's true, I do have spam mail. I wonder what they are farming now to sell for AD?

ambisinisterr · May 2016

Unlikely.

Where there is a will there is a way. As long as people buy illicitly acquired AD then they will be around.

I do not mean to be a Debbie Downer but I am first and foremost a realist. The developers of every MMO is going to fight the good fight against bots and cheaters as hard as they can but even though there are victories on the field bot makers will always adapt.

Enjoy what peace you find but understand that even if they are gone today they are all but assured to find another means to supply goods to those willing to purchase them.

kvet · May 2016

ambisinisterr said:
Unlikely.
Where there is a will there is a way. As long as people buy illicitly acquired AD then they will be around.

You mean where there's profit there's a way, I think. And I totally agree - while skill nodes aren't the thing anymore, they'll find another thing, then another, then another. As long as there is a way to farm unbound items that players are willing to buy in large quantities, the criminals that are ruining our game will find a way to do it. Why? Because players are willing to allow them to profit by paying them real money for the AD. Simple as that.

HAMSTER attracts flies. Do you blame the flies for being there, given it's what they do? You have to blame the crappy players at least as much, if not MORE than the botters because it's the players that pay them that make it worth it for the botters to even bother. They're here because the dregs of the playerbase - the HAMSTER - is here attracting them.

wildfirede · May 2016

Currently running Stronghold heroics mostly (so not visible to players) - except when they are resetting the map (using The Chasm or Neverwinter for that)

ambisinisterr · May 2016

kvet said:

ambisinisterr said:
Unlikely.
Where there is a will there is a way. As long as people buy illicitly acquired AD then they will be around.

You mean where there's profit there's a way, I think.

More or less what you said, I said. So yes.
If people are willing to buy illicitly obtained currency and items then the bot makers will find a way to obtain the items to sell for a profit. The ability to profit is what drives the will for botters to find ways to bot in game goods and currencies. If the botters didn't profit they wouldn't bot.

Kudos for cold truthful statement though Kvet. I agree with it wholeheartedly but it is a statement which always results in hostile reactions no matter how true it is.

People try to defend the behavior by saying the cost of AD on the Zen Exchange is too high but when you really do the math of how much time it takes to farm the AD to buy Zen it is a pittance. I make more in 15 minutes working a real job than I would make farming AD all day. Generally you are better off throwing 10-20$ a month towards Zen than spending the time farming AD to sell for the same value unless you truly have no budget to spend towards the game. Bots sell things lower than the player market value because robots do not value time as much as humans do.

Quite honestly when people buy from third party sites they are not only stealing from Cryptic and PWE...
They are stealing from their fellow players who are selling their time for Zen. Time which is probably being paid less than people would ever consider acceptable in all but the poorest country.

Unknown · May 2016

This content has been removed.

ambisinisterr · May 2016

There isn't a multiplayer game on the face of the planet which doesn't promote botting short of a pure PvP game.

There's NOTHING that any MMO can make which can't be botted other than PvP and boss fights. Even removing trade doesn't work as people will still bot to do whatever else. There will always be people looking to skip whatever tasks they have to do in order to advance in the game no matter how trivial it is unless it is not bottable to begin with.

Sorry magenubbie but you will not find a Dark Souls MMO and this game will not give up PvE. You are asking the impossible.

So long as the game is bottable...and it always will...there will always be bots as long as people are willing to pay them.

Unknown · May 2016

This content has been removed.

ambisinisterr · May 2016

I am saying that your point is moot because no matter how trivial the grind is people will still use bots and/or purchase from bots unless the game is unbottable.

Those who bot or purchase from bots will do so whether the grind is obscene or not. It is a personallity type more so than anything else. It's the me-now crowd. It happens without fail regardless of how much of a grind there is in a game.

The impact on bots is not exponential. It's logarithmic. Those who want the end result without the progression will always resort to ways to get it unless the results are given immediately. They can always get whatever they want faster with a bot unless it is not a bottable activity. If it takes twice as long to do something with a bot then they will happily use a bot while they are watching TV, at work or at school as logically twice as slow as they could do soemthing manually is infinitely faster than if they did nothing during the time they were not able to play.

Certainly there is some impact but I have played games with far for grind than NW has and I have played games with no grind. The bots have always existed with no huge difference in quantity. Those who are willing to bot or purchase from bots will regardless. Those who morally disagree often stick to that. Those who break under the strain are few and far between. Your faith that people don't cheat unless forced to is truly misplaced.

Hence why I understood your point completely and said you are completely wrong.

beckylunatic · May 2016

I dunno. By that argument, if we levelled our equipment purely by adventuring in it (the Zerg model) instead of shovelling refinement into it, people who don't want to DIY might still utilize bots, but everyone trying to cheat the system would have to be running a script on their primary character and wouldn't so easily be able to circumvent the system by buying product from a goldseller. Not bot-proof, but a system that is far less supportive of the kind of repetitive task that humans hate doing and want to automate.

I don't know. I guess it doesn't sufficiently cater to the WANTITNEEDITTODAYGIMMEEEEE crowd the way that blood rubies are meant to, except that none of us can ever wrap our heads around the idea that anyone would spend the fortune on blood rubies that maxed out equipment would require.

As mindboggling as it is, the actual sales figures from blood rubies must somehow justify everything. Not that we'll ever see them. I think it would be absolutely fascinating to see the actual breakdown of how much profit gets generated from each store category. (I'm sure a lot of their sales figures must contradict what we say we'd pay more for if only it were there.)

yokki1 · May 2016

ambisinisterr said:
There isn't a multiplayer game on the face of the planet which doesn't promote botting short of a pure PvP game.

There's NOTHING that any MMO can make which can't be botted other than PvP and boss fights. Even removing trade doesn't work as people will still bot to do whatever else. There will always be people looking to skip whatever tasks they have to do in order to advance in the game no matter how trivial it is unless it is not bottable to begin with.

Sorry magenubbie but you will not find a Dark Souls MMO and this game will not give up PvE. You are asking the impossible.

So long as the game is bottable...and it always will...there will always be bots as long as people are willing to pay them.

you are plain wrong.
there is another mmo which is full of pvp bots with good rankings (rhymes with toll)
there is another mmo that the only bots that are there are only for afk leveling.

grogthemagnif · May 2016

ambisinisterr said:
Unlikely.

Where there is a will there is a way. As long as people buy illicitly acquired AD then they will be around.

I do not mean to be a Debbie Downer but I am first and foremost a realist. The developers of every MMO is going to fight the good fight against bots and cheaters as hard as they can but even though there are victories on the field bot makers will always adapt.

Enjoy what peace you find but understand that even if they are gone today they are all but assured to find another means to supply goods to those willing to purchase them.

It's getting to be "Who will the spammer who e=mails me be today". I still like my anti-bot US $40 transaction fee.

If you tried to set up shop is Macy's or Target or K-Mart or WalMart and you weren't chased out then they would charge you for using their store. Neverwinter is Hasbro's and Cryptic's and Arc's store

mentinmindmaker · May 2016

I have heard ESO is more or less bot-free.

That is because it is rather limited what you can buy for gold there, so there simply is not a big market for botted stuff.

zibadawa · May 2016

ambisinisterr said:
There isn't a multiplayer game on the face of the planet which doesn't promote botting short of a pure PvP game.

Counterstrike, aim bots.

If your goal is to play a bot-free game, then the only winning strategy is to not play.

kevelprime · May 2016

beep boop

phoenix1021 · May 2016

Wow. You need to tone this down a notch I think. While bots certainly are a vialation of the game's rules and I agree that most are damaging to the game, they are not "criminals", nor are they "stealing" anything. These terms are cleary defined and just don't apply here.

ambisinisterr · May 2016

phoenix1021 said:
Wow. You need to tone this down a notch I think. While bots certainly are a vialation of the game's rules and I agree that most are damaging to the game, they are not "criminals", nor are they "stealing" anything. These terms are cleary defined and just don't apply here.

By selling in game assets which they do not own as per the Terms of Service (signed contract) they are in fact stealing.

Most cases of stealing in the world are not "criminal." There is a difference between doing something illegal and being a criminal.

Bot makers are not legally criminals (in most cases) but they are breaching the contract which is in fact illegal under any definition and by selling products they do not own as per the contract they are legally defined as stealing from the company. Breaches of contract are virtually always a civil case but make no mistake it is in fact "illegal," "stealing" and the bot makers can be sued for breaching the contract, theft of property and damages to business.
Example.

You do not own ANYTHING in this game or virtually any MMO. Not your account. Not your name. Not your items. Nothing.
You lease everything you have access to and have no legal right to sell it.

If you do the MMO company has the right to every penny you sell it for.

And this is not limited to just MMO's. Your iTunes, amazon or Google account have similar restrictions. Back in 2012 there was a false report that Bruce Willis was going to sue Apple due to the restrictions on transferring songs he purchased on iTunes. Now the rumor was debunked the next day by Willis but that is a grain of falsehood in the otherwise very real legally binding contracts you make with Apple, Amazon, Google, Microsoft...and every MMO.

For fun: 10 Illegal Things You do All the Time.

Unknown · May 2016

This content has been removed.

thefabricant · May 2016

ambisinisterr said:

phoenix1021 said:
Wow. You need to tone this down a notch I think. While bots certainly are a vialation of the game's rules and I agree that most are damaging to the game, they are not "criminals", nor are they "stealing" anything. These terms are cleary defined and just don't apply here.
By selling in game assets which they do not own as per the Terms of Service (signed contract) they are in fact stealing.

Most cases of stealing in the world are not "criminal." There is a difference between doing something illegal and being a criminal.

Bot makers are not legally criminals (in most cases) but they are breaching the contract which is in fact illegal under any definition and by selling products they do not own as per the contract they are legally defined as stealing from the company. Breaches of contract are virtually always a civil case but make no mistake it is in fact "illegal," "stealing" and the bot makers can be sued for breaching the contract, theft of property and damages to business.
Example.

You do not own ANYTHING in this game or virtually any MMO. Not your account. Not your name. Not your items. Nothing.
You lease everything you have access to and have no legal right to sell it.

If you do the MMO company has the right to every penny you sell it for.

And this is not limited to just MMO's. Your iTunes, amazon or Google account have similar restrictions. Back in 2012 there was a false report that Bruce Willis was going to sue Apple due to the restrictions on transferring songs he purchased on iTunes. Now the rumor was debunked the next day by Willis but that is a grain of falsehood in the otherwise very real legally binding contracts you make with Apple, Amazon, Google, Microsoft...and every MMO.

For fun: 10 Illegal Things You do All the Time.

@ambisinisterr the interesting question is how these laws actually behave in question, because whilst true, these things are illegal, but practically trying to enforce those laws isn't as easy as it sounds. For example, say the bot company exists somewhere in some country that America (or whatever country NWO is based in) doesn't have an extradition treaty with, that person may be breaking the terms of service, but good luck ever taking them to trial for it. The same is true for the terms of service for any game really, you don't know how binding they are, until the company actually tries to enforce them. Whilst I do agree that they should be legally binding and that people should not get away with breaking them, I imagine most of the time, for the company in question, it isn't worth the effort they would have to go to to actually have people punished for breaking those terms.

The real issue is, who polices the internet, it isn't governed by one country, it has no nationality and no borders, in many ways, the internet is ahead of its time.

kolatmaster · May 2016

The Internet is the...

mellamernn · May 2016

I, unfortunately, have encountered bots since the skill node update. The one was in the underdark mines on the weekend just standing there for hours doing a radius attack at a perfectly regular interval to kill mobs and not reacting to anything I tried to do, probably to get the Tymora boxes. I tried reporting them, but the way of contacting a GM was "unable to connect" no matter how long I waited. I wish there was a way of reporting bots that you can select in the menu that comes up when you select them with the F key. If there is an easier way to report bots, I would be very happy to be informed of it.

dsn1118 · May 2016

thefabricant said:

ambisinisterr said:

phoenix1021 said:
Wow. You need to tone this down a notch I think. While bots certainly are a vialation of the game's rules and I agree that most are damaging to the game, they are not "criminals", nor are they "stealing" anything. These terms are cleary defined and just don't apply here.
By selling in game assets which they do not own as per the Terms of Service (signed contract) they are in fact stealing.

Most cases of stealing in the world are not "criminal." There is a difference between doing something illegal and being a criminal.

Bot makers are not legally criminals (in most cases) but they are breaching the contract which is in fact illegal under any definition and by selling products they do not own as per the contract they are legally defined as stealing from the company. Breaches of contract are virtually always a civil case but make no mistake it is in fact "illegal," "stealing" and the bot makers can be sued for breaching the contract, theft of property and damages to business.
Example.

You do not own ANYTHING in this game or virtually any MMO. Not your account. Not your name. Not your items. Nothing.
You lease everything you have access to and have no legal right to sell it.

If you do the MMO company has the right to every penny you sell it for.

And this is not limited to just MMO's. Your iTunes, amazon or Google account have similar restrictions. Back in 2012 there was a false report that Bruce Willis was going to sue Apple due to the restrictions on transferring songs he purchased on iTunes. Now the rumor was debunked the next day by Willis but that is a grain of falsehood in the otherwise very real legally binding contracts you make with Apple, Amazon, Google, Microsoft...and every MMO.

For fun: 10 Illegal Things You do All the Time.

@ambisinisterr the interesting question is how these laws actually behave in question, because whilst true, these things are illegal, but practically trying to enforce those laws isn't as easy as it sounds. For example, say the bot company exists somewhere in some country that America (or whatever country NWO is based in) doesn't have an extradition treaty with, that person may be breaking the terms of service, but good luck ever taking them to trial for it. The same is true for the terms of service for any game really, you don't know how binding they are, until the company actually tries to enforce them. Whilst I do agree that they should be legally binding and that people should not get away with breaking them, I imagine most of the time, for the company in question, it isn't worth the effort they would have to go to to actually have people punished for breaking those terms.

The real issue is, who polices the internet, it isn't governed by one country, it has no nationality and no borders, in many ways, the internet is ahead of its time.

Interesting but you are all forgetting one thing.You cant force your own law to other countries' citizens.I am not American so where can you sue me.I dont think my country have any virtual world laws yet.I mean I remember there was a dude who got hacked and robbed 2000$ worth of ingame items 3-4 years ago.He went to the police but police was also dumbfounded because there was no law for ingame items to be counted as owned property or something like that.Of course hacking is illegal but I dont think its punishment as harsh as robery.Also most of online gaming companies dont like dealing other governments than where they are founded because of issues like taxes or lawsuits.For example, I am not American and I accepted user aggrements so lets say I did something I was not supposed to, where do you plan to sue me.And according to whose law?

krymkac · May 2016

Bad Bad bots. So cute. I guess y guys have lots of fun grinding same stuff over & over or buying blood rubies cause every freaking thing requires tons of rp. And off cause y got your mythic/leg stuff without buying any rp from ah. Yeah right. Bad bad bots. On the other side of the coin is Cryptic punishing legit players and removing stuff from the game that already doesn't have enough content rather than actually reward playing the game. "They don't buy blood rubies. Why don't they buy blood rubies. How dare them?!"

thefabricant · May 2016

dsn1118 said:

thefabricant said:

ambisinisterr said:

phoenix1021 said:
Wow. You need to tone this down a notch I think. While bots certainly are a vialation of the game's rules and I agree that most are damaging to the game, they are not "criminals", nor are they "stealing" anything. These terms are cleary defined and just don't apply here.
By selling in game assets which they do not own as per the Terms of Service (signed contract) they are in fact stealing.

Most cases of stealing in the world are not "criminal." There is a difference between doing something illegal and being a criminal.

Bot makers are not legally criminals (in most cases) but they are breaching the contract which is in fact illegal under any definition and by selling products they do not own as per the contract they are legally defined as stealing from the company. Breaches of contract are virtually always a civil case but make no mistake it is in fact "illegal," "stealing" and the bot makers can be sued for breaching the contract, theft of property and damages to business.
Example.

You do not own ANYTHING in this game or virtually any MMO. Not your account. Not your name. Not your items. Nothing.
You lease everything you have access to and have no legal right to sell it.

If you do the MMO company has the right to every penny you sell it for.

And this is not limited to just MMO's. Your iTunes, amazon or Google account have similar restrictions. Back in 2012 there was a false report that Bruce Willis was going to sue Apple due to the restrictions on transferring songs he purchased on iTunes. Now the rumor was debunked the next day by Willis but that is a grain of falsehood in the otherwise very real legally binding contracts you make with Apple, Amazon, Google, Microsoft...and every MMO.

For fun: 10 Illegal Things You do All the Time.

@ambisinisterr the interesting question is how these laws actually behave in question, because whilst true, these things are illegal, but practically trying to enforce those laws isn't as easy as it sounds. For example, say the bot company exists somewhere in some country that America (or whatever country NWO is based in) doesn't have an extradition treaty with, that person may be breaking the terms of service, but good luck ever taking them to trial for it. The same is true for the terms of service for any game really, you don't know how binding they are, until the company actually tries to enforce them. Whilst I do agree that they should be legally binding and that people should not get away with breaking them, I imagine most of the time, for the company in question, it isn't worth the effort they would have to go to to actually have people punished for breaking those terms.

The real issue is, who polices the internet, it isn't governed by one country, it has no nationality and no borders, in many ways, the internet is ahead of its time.
Interesting but you are all forgetting one thing.You cant force your own law to other countries' citizens.I am not American so where can you sue me.I dont think my country have any virtual world laws yet.I mean I remember there was a dude who got hacked and robbed 2000$ worth of ingame items 3-4 years ago.He went to the police but police was also dumbfounded because there was no law for ingame items to be counted as owned property or something like that.Of course hacking is illegal but I dont think its punishment as harsh as robery.Also most of online gaming companies dont like dealing other governments than where they are founded because of issues like taxes or lawsuits.For example, I am not American and I accepted user aggrements so lets say I did something I was not supposed to, where do you plan to sue me.And according to whose law?

This is exactly what I am getting at.

Unknown · May 2016

This content has been removed.

rapo973 · May 2016

ambisinisterr said:
Unlikely.

I agree: unlikely.
This leads me to think about the reasons of this umpteenth nerf.
If it's unlikely that it will stop the bots (but only makes their lives a bit harder), it's likely that the legit players are the only ones hit by this choice, up to the extreme consequences: you open a skill node and there's nothing inside.
I'm not a skill node's fan, so at least for me that's irrelevant.

beckylunatic · May 2016

metalldjt said:
>
You do not own ANYTHING in this game or virtually any MMO. Not your account. Not your name. Not your items. Nothing.
You lease everything you have access to and have no legal right to sell it.

then who am i and what i am doing here?

Well, you are the person behind the character known as "Lancer".

Presumably what you are doing is here is trying to have fun? At a guess.

phoenix1021 · May 2016

ambisinisterr said:

phoenix1021 said:
Wow. You need to tone this down a notch I think. While bots certainly are a vialation of the game's rules and I agree that most are damaging to the game, they are not "criminals", nor are they "stealing" anything. These terms are cleary defined and just don't apply here.
By selling in game assets which they do not own as per the Terms of Service (signed contract) they are in fact stealing.

Most cases of stealing in the world are not "criminal." There is a difference between doing something illegal and being a criminal.

Bot makers are not legally criminals (in most cases) but they are breaching the contract which is in fact illegal under any definition and by selling products they do not own as per the contract they are legally defined as stealing from the company. Breaches of contract are virtually always a civil case but make no mistake it is in fact "illegal," "stealing" and the bot makers can be sued for breaching the contract, theft of property and damages to business.
Example.

You do not own ANYTHING in this game or virtually any MMO. Not your account. Not your name. Not your items. Nothing.
You lease everything you have access to and have no legal right to sell it.

If you do the MMO company has the right to every penny you sell it for.

And this is not limited to just MMO's. Your iTunes, amazon or Google account have similar restrictions. Back in 2012 there was a false report that Bruce Willis was going to sue Apple due to the restrictions on transferring songs he purchased on iTunes. Now the rumor was debunked the next day by Willis but that is a grain of falsehood in the otherwise very real legally binding contracts you make with Apple, Amazon, Google, Microsoft...and every MMO.

For fun: 10 Illegal Things You do All the Time.

So, maybe this is different in the US, but here in europe even blizzard failed to sue goldsellers, and if a company terminates your contract one-sided (what is called a ban in MMOs), you can sue them should you have paid a subscription fee already.
Anyway, I just meant to keep a game a game and not call cheaters "criminals", "HAMSTER", "scum", or whatever else was already said here.

lewstelamon01 · May 2016

thefabricant said:

dsn1118 said:

thefabricant said:

ambisinisterr said:

phoenix1021 said:
Wow. You need to tone this down a notch I think. While bots certainly are a vialation of the game's rules and I agree that most are damaging to the game, they are not "criminals", nor are they "stealing" anything. These terms are cleary defined and just don't apply here.
By selling in game assets which they do not own as per the Terms of Service (signed contract) they are in fact stealing.

Most cases of stealing in the world are not "criminal." There is a difference between doing something illegal and being a criminal.

Bot makers are not legally criminals (in most cases) but they are breaching the contract which is in fact illegal under any definition and by selling products they do not own as per the contract they are legally defined as stealing from the company. Breaches of contract are virtually always a civil case but make no mistake it is in fact "illegal," "stealing" and the bot makers can be sued for breaching the contract, theft of property and damages to business.
Example.

You do not own ANYTHING in this game or virtually any MMO. Not your account. Not your name. Not your items. Nothing.
You lease everything you have access to and have no legal right to sell it.

If you do the MMO company has the right to every penny you sell it for.

And this is not limited to just MMO's. Your iTunes, amazon or Google account have similar restrictions. Back in 2012 there was a false report that Bruce Willis was going to sue Apple due to the restrictions on transferring songs he purchased on iTunes. Now the rumor was debunked the next day by Willis but that is a grain of falsehood in the otherwise very real legally binding contracts you make with Apple, Amazon, Google, Microsoft...and every MMO.

For fun: 10 Illegal Things You do All the Time.

@ambisinisterr the interesting question is how these laws actually behave in question, because whilst true, these things are illegal, but practically trying to enforce those laws isn't as easy as it sounds. For example, say the bot company exists somewhere in some country that America (or whatever country NWO is based in) doesn't have an extradition treaty with, that person may be breaking the terms of service, but good luck ever taking them to trial for it. The same is true for the terms of service for any game really, you don't know how binding they are, until the company actually tries to enforce them. Whilst I do agree that they should be legally binding and that people should not get away with breaking them, I imagine most of the time, for the company in question, it isn't worth the effort they would have to go to to actually have people punished for breaking those terms.

The real issue is, who polices the internet, it isn't governed by one country, it has no nationality and no borders, in many ways, the internet is ahead of its time.
Interesting but you are all forgetting one thing.You cant force your own law to other countries' citizens.I am not American so where can you sue me.I dont think my country have any virtual world laws yet.I mean I remember there was a dude who got hacked and robbed 2000$ worth of ingame items 3-4 years ago.He went to the police but police was also dumbfounded because there was no law for ingame items to be counted as owned property or something like that.Of course hacking is illegal but I dont think its punishment as harsh as robery.Also most of online gaming companies dont like dealing other governments than where they are founded because of issues like taxes or lawsuits.For example, I am not American and I accepted user aggrements so lets say I did something I was not supposed to, where do you plan to sue me.And according to whose law?
This is exactly what I am getting at.

Look at the bottom of the Terms of Service. There's usually a severability clause as well as a clause determining where and under what jurisdiction the contract is governed by. Any dispute (or claim) arising from said agreement is governed under the laws of the courts stated in that clause, regardless of where the claim originates.

For example, Section 31 (haha, for anyone that gets the Star Trek reference in this) of the ARC Terms of Service states:

Unless applicable mandatory law expressly dictates otherwise:
- this Agreement is governed by and shall be construed and enforced under the laws of the Netherlands;
- the applicability of the Vienna Sales Convention is expressly excluded;
- Any action, dispute or proceeding instituted under this Agreement shall be brought before the competent court in Amsterdam, the Netherlands.

This would be an example of a jurisdiction clause. Unless the law of your country expressly states otherwise, any suit brought against ARC (and conversely, any suit ARC brings against a person) would be governed under Netherlands law and in a court of the Netherlands, regardless of the country in which the person resides.

Bots / Farmers gone?

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