Merging Servers ~ The Full Facts

SylenThunder - Twilight Temple · May 2015

There have been several posts recently about merging the servers. A lot of people seem to assume it's something that PWE can "just do" and aren't aware of the full ramifications of this.
This post is an attempt to clear things up, and de-mystify some of the actual process.
(All data is based on my own research from managing multiple private servers, working with the PWE/PW-CN Development teams, and from facts provided by previous Community Managers.)

For the basics....

1. Your basic character data is stored in two SQL databases. This has the links to the relational tables for your account, guild, spouse, level, ect.
2. Your extended character data is stored in an xml format file. This has the detailed character information on level, attributes, quests, skills, gear, inventory, bank, ect.
3. Then all of this data is cross-linked within several different proprietary format databases and the main account table.

So it's not a simple matter of changing it in just one spot. You cannot just merge the data in from one database to another.
It will additionally have to be changed in each of the other databases, and in all of the cross-linked data between your account, and everyone else that you've interacted with. On top of that you've got the account/character table, which has it's own inherent limitations. (We won't go into a lot of detail on that here because it's not as relevant)

Now, which servers could merge, if they were inclined to do so?

The Servers

West Coast
Sanctuary
Lost City (PvP)
Heaven's Tear
Archosaur

East Coast
Dreamweaver
Raging Tide
Harshlands (PvP)

Now, the servers that could possibly merge are in blue. Anything in red can not be merged.
(Technically it's possible that they eventually could, maybe, but it's just not realistic. For all intents and purposes, it's simply never going to happen because way too much work is involved with a very high possibility of error or failure.)

Heaven's Tear can merge with Sanctuary or Archosaur.
Archosaur can merge with Sanctuary or Heaven's Tear.
Heaven's Tear and Archosaur can merge together into Sanctuary, but that's going to be really brutal for both the hardware and events. Just merging two could be pushing it.

Now take a look at it from a hardware standpoint. You'll essentially be cutting off all the hardware from the one server, and putting double the load on the server you merge into. The largest impact on this would be the instance servers that manage things like FB/WS/TT/FC/Lunar. You'll have double or triple the people in those instances and putting that much more load on the data stream for each instance server.

Here's a basic layout..

Login server
Main world server
Boutique server (Yes, it needs it's own server now.)
Instance servers (This is mostly guesswork, but it should be similar)
______FB19 instances
______FB29, 39, and Secret Passage
______FB49(51), 59, and 69
______The list just keeps on going, but you should get the idea by now.

Each of those servers is an individual piece of hardware with it's own processing limitations. The reason it's split up like that is to better handle the load because each "map" for each instance takes up a certain amount of RAM and CPU cycles. The more people that are in an instance, the more CPU cycles are required for it to function. By dividing the servers load across multiple hardware servers, they are able to accommodate the millions that play the game. You can run all the instances on one server with 32-64GB of RAM, but your CPU won't be able to handle more than a few thousand people playing.

Now, that's the server-side of things. As you can see, there's really no option for the PvP servers or the East Coast. Any further discussion on merging those is pretty much moot. The time and cost that would be involved in such an event far outweighs any possible benefits.

The Community

Now consider the community. All those TW factions.... If you merge the servers, they aren't going to reduce, they'll increase. You'll have twice as many factions lobbying for the land. Initially it may prove interesting. In the end though, it's going to have a pretty large negative impact on the community. You'll end up with the top tier factions from each server fighting each other and the rest of the players will just be SoL. It's practically there now, but this season has been a bit more interesting on Sanctuary than the last few. Long term, TW gets boring, people quit doing TW, those people leave to do something more interesting on another game.

Now think about West Arch. You think the number of catshops in Archosaur kills your FPS now? Imagine what it's like when you double or triple the number of catshops? No, that drop in FPS in those locations isn't an issue with load on the server. It's your CPU struggling to render everything because this is an aging title that still doesn't use your GPU for the majority of graphical processing. I don't care that you have an i7 hexacore processor with an Nvidia Titan, your FPS will still drop because of the way the client works. (been there, done that)

What about events? Imagine Smoke over Archosaur with double or triple the people participating. World bosses. Drake. The list goes on. I'm not sure about Archosaur or Heaven's Tear, but those events are bad enough on Sanctuary as it is. Arguably though, Sanctuary is the most populated server of them all though because it was the first PVE server that existed.

Initially it will appear to increase the activity on the servers, but it's not really. You're just combining the load. You aren't bringing new people into the game, and it's not going to do anything that would attract new players. Long term, it's more likely to have a negative effect on the overall player base. You can bring up the EU server merge all you want. Those servers hadn't been around for 5+ years when they were merged. It's like comparing apples to oranges.

Personally, I'd make this a sticky, but we have too many sticky threads as it is, and it isn't like anyone would bother to read it before posting yet another "Can we have a server merge?" thread.

/TLDR, It's remotely feasible that Archosaur can merge with Heaven's Tear, and that's pretty much the only thing that could happen. IF PWE was inclined to do so. Right now they aren't even inclined to provide basic support or a Community Manager. (I've got the experience, and would apply for the position; except that I'm pretty sure PWE won't pay me anywhere near what I make now, and I'm not moving to San Jose.)

Jarkhen - Archosaur · May 2015

SylenThunder - Sanctuary wrote: »

Now consider the community. All those TW factions.... If you merge the servers, they aren't going to reduce, they'll increase. You'll have twice as many factions lobbying for the land. Initially it may prove interesting. In the end though, it's going to have a pretty large negative impact on the community. You'll end up with the top tier factions from each server fighting each other and the rest of the players will just be SoL. It's practically there now, but this season has been a bit more interesting on Sanctuary than the last few. Long term, TW gets boring, people quit doing TW, those people leave to do something more interesting on another game.

I don't know what Sanc looks like atm, but Archosaur is pretty much at that point already as it is. At least if we had a merge we wouldn't have 3/4 of the server's gear content with sitting in the one faction that's been dominating TW for two years now.

QueNa - Sanctuary · May 2015

I appreciate what you wrote and informing us but I disagree with the things you wrote at the community.

If you merge the servers, they aren't going to reduce, they'll increase. You'll have twice as many factions lobbying for the land. Initially it may prove interesting. In the end though, it's going to have a pretty large negative impact on the community. You'll end up with the top tier factions from each server fighting each other and the rest of the players will just be SoL. It's practically there now, but this season has been a bit more interesting on Sanctuary than the last few. Long term, TW gets boring, people quit doing TW, those people leave to do something more interesting on another game.

People are bored because there are no people to fight. Even if we do have 2 factions that can fight each other, it gets boring pretty fast fighting the same opponent all the time. I don't count Kaku/LG now since LG seems to roll them anyway. Bringing new factions means new challenges for old factions. Small factions will be kicked out of the map eventually? You said it, it already happens.

Now think about West Arch. You think the number of catshops in Archosaur kills your FPS now?

There used to be far more catshops at west than there are now. Yes I had fps problems. I'd rather have lower fps at west if it means a more active server.

What about events? Imagine Smoke over Archosaur with double or triple the people participating.

Again, we used to have a lot more players in the past and people dealt with it. You think now it's bad?

People are quiting the game left and right. In just the last couple of months I've seen several people leave. Some people only come back because other players whine for them to come back to at least TW. The game is on its way to dying either way so why not a merger? Sure it will only help one server but better than nothing no?

You're worried a merger will make people quit? They are quiting already as is...

SylenThunder - Twilight Temple · May 2015

QueNa - Sanctuary wrote: »

People are bored because there are no people to fight. Even if we do have 2 factions that can fight each other, it gets boring pretty fast fighting the same opponent all the time. I don't count Kaku/LG now since LG seems to roll them anyway. Bringing new factions means new challenges for old factions. Small factions will be kicked out of the map eventually? You said it, it already happens.

Right, it will just happen faster, and instead of one vindi, we'll have two or three. Overall, not much change except where it comes to the group PvE content. Vindi alone is bad enough with pushing the normal players out of server events. Imagine with three of them.

Personally though, it makes no sense to merge either of the servers into Sanctuary. I'm making a rather wild guess, but you could probably combine Heaven's Tear with Archosaur and come close to the same server population as Sanctuary has. I'm just guessing though since PWE has never divulged any hard data on server populations.

QueNa - Sanctuary wrote: »

People are quitting the game left and right. In just the last couple of months I've seen several people leave. Some people only come back because other players whine for them to come back to at least TW. The game is on its way to dying either way so why not a merger? Sure it will only help one server but better than nothing no?

You're worried a merger will make people quit? They are quitting already as is...

I didn't say it was bad now. b:chuckle

I'm just saying that overall, merging the servers won't have a large impact long-term. People quit now, and overall I don't think the number of people quitting would change much. Surely a few in the short-term, but they'll most likely come back, and we'll have the usual trickle of new faces.

Largely this thread was intended for information, and voicing my own opinions on the community may have side-railed it a bit. To be perfectly honest, with the lack of current management and communication with China; even if they found it feasible to merge Heaven's Tear and Archosaur, I seriously doubt it would ever happen. It will require quite a bit of time and effort into doing it. Overall, I don't think the monetary benefits of doing so would cover the cost of the effort. If there were any to be had.

CapnK - Sanctuary · May 2015

I thought HT was older than Sanctuary?

Viktorian - Archosaur · May 2015

So, are we saying its IMPOSSIBLE or DIFFICULT to merge the red servers? And if its DIFFICULT, what exactly would have to be done? I probably missed this in the OP, if i did, please point it out.

opkossy · May 2015

Red are difficult enough to merge that even if we had proper support and management it'd be more likely that the game would shut down entirely than that those servers would be merged. Possible? Yes, on a technical level like TT99 +5 killing maxed out R9 players. Realistic? About as realistic as PWI staff releasing a code for Arc that grants everyone everything they need for a set of +12 fully jaded endgame armors with a maxed out nuema portal set and emperor tome.

Viktorian - Archosaur · May 2015

OPKossy wrote: »

Red are difficult enough to merge that even if we had proper support and management it'd be more likely that the game would shut down entirely than that those servers would be merged. Possible? Yes, on a technical level like TT99 +5 killing maxed out R9 players. Realistic? About as realistic as PWI staff releasing a code for Arc that grants everyone everything they need for a set of +12 fully jaded endgame armors with a maxed out nuema portal set and emperor tome.

So were talking so damn near impossible that its not even worth wondering about

DoodsWH - Sanctuary · May 2015

werent the EURO servers merged and how negative was the impact (not how they merged it cause the servers were new, not YEARS OLD WITH TONS OF DATA) , IE. mor server lag, hows tw and was it more beneficial then negative. see they already merged servers so there is no need to wonder, just ask the morai server ppl how it went. b:chuckle

Alex_Gantz - Dreamweaver · May 2015

You are missing the biggest fact... the population on the servers is so LOW now, so the double or triple of people you talk about in your
post will be basicaly the normal people the instances were prepared to deal with, so It won t be any over population but just a return to
the normal amount of people that servers used to have.
Plus, TW is dead in pretty much every server.. pk too..
I was out of the game for almost an year, I came back like a month or so ago to see how much the server population has decreased (and i m on
DW that is in average a server with a good population)..
So the point is the same as usual, if ARC/PW or whatever things that a merge will give them more money be sure that is going to happen. b:chuckle

Redmenace - Heavens Tear · May 2015

SylenThunder - Sanctuary wrote: »

In the end though, it's going to have a pretty large negative impact on the community. You'll end up with the top tier factions from each server fighting each other and the rest of the players will just be SoL. It's practically there now, but this season has been a bit more interesting on Sanctuary than the last few. Long term, TW gets boring, people quit doing TW, those people leave to do something more interesting on another game.

I can't speak for Sanc, but HT has been that way for about 4-5 years. As ridiculous a concept as I think server merges are, I suspect doubling the player count on HT would end up with at least 6-8 full killer facs to dominate the map, instead of the 2-3 (on a good day) that we have now.

All it will mean is shortening the amount of time the lower tier facs have to play, from a month or two to a week or 2.

.

__Sami__ - Archosaur · May 2015

Redmenace - Heavens Tear wrote: »

I can't speak for Sanc, but HT has been that way for about 4-5 years. As ridiculous a concept as I think server merges are, I suspect doubling the player count on HT would end up with at least 6-8 full killer facs to dominate the map, instead of the 2-3 (on a good day) that we have now.

All it will mean is shortening the amount of time the lower tier facs have to play, from a month or two to a week or 2.

.

I dont really understand how 6-8 factions could actually dominate map in a bad way. TW is supposed to be a competition, having 6-8 large TW factions would be pretty damn amazing.

As for small factions getting kicked out sooner, so what? We still have the kind of factions on map that would I take a squad of friends we could put the faction on map if we wanted. This is what, 6 months into season? Sure, it requires the kind of a joke server archo is but still.

unrefuted · May 2015

Alex_Gantz - Dreamweaver wrote: »

You are missing the biggest fact... the population on the servers is so LOW now, so the double or triple of people you talk about in your
post will be basicaly the normal people the instances were prepared to deal with, so It won t be any over population but just a return to
the normal amount of people that servers used to have.
Plus, TW is dead in pretty much every server.. pk too..
I was out of the game for almost an year, I came back like a month or so ago to see how much the server population has decreased (and i m on
DW that is in average a server with a good population)..
So the point is the same as usual, if ARC/PW or whatever things that a merge will give them more money be sure that is going to happen. b:chuckle

This. A million players? I'd be surprised if there's 2000 active players at the same time. Just look at NW numbers.

opkossy · May 2015

unrefuted wrote: »

This. A million players? I'd be surprised if there's 2000 active players at the same time. Just look at NW numbers.

NW numbers are a poor representation at best. Players that don't like it won't go. Players that prefer PvE won't go. Players that don't want to bother with it after getting what they've needed from it won't go. Players that have other things to do/lives that prevent them from joining it in time won't go.... and those are all off the top of my head. Only a minority will actually do NW now that it's no longer a new thing and even with that minority only a small amount will do it regularly. So any assumptions about server population with NW numbers as its basis are worth absolutely nothing.

Zoldi - Morai · May 2015

DoodsWH - Sanctuary wrote: »

werent the EURO servers merged and how negative was the impact (not how they merged it cause the servers were new, not YEARS OLD WITH TONS OF DATA) , IE. mor server lag, hows tw and was it more beneficial then negative. see they already merged servers so there is no need to wonder, just ask the morai server ppl how it went. b:chuckle

Historically for EU there were two servers Lothranis ("french" one) and Momaganon ("german" one).
The merge between Lothranis and Momaganon was actually a forced move of every Momaganon's toons/items into Lothranis. And they didn't change the hardware from Lothranis server as far as I know, they just renamed it Morai. I didn't remember any major bugs due to the merge (I was happily surprised for once). As for lags this is related to the server population regardless there was a merge or not. If server is designed to handle the numbers, then this is ok, otherwise this is not.
Also note that both servers were sharing same database and were both PVE servers.
Regarding TW, there had been no real fight between Lothranis factions and Momaganon factions. Indeed, the second best faction from Lothranis merged with best or second best faction from Momaganon (they planned that before the merge) and a lot of Momaganon's well geared people joined Lothranis best faction. So we could say it was mixed from the start.
)

rieihdius · May 2015

First than all have to thank Sylen for this Thread. It is very informative and clarifies many things.

Now just to clarify something that apparently many seem not to understand, and I must say that im surprised that a lot of the people here of which apparently are veteran players and they refuse to accept something that is quite obvious.

And the obvious fact that im talking about is that most of the people that quit the game is not some guy/gal who got bored to fight the same opponent or someone bored of the most powerful faction.

Most of the People that quit this game is because they got bored of a company that:

- Does not support them
- When does any event, it usually ruins it (not always but most of times)
- Sometimes even being extreme cser, support sends them to f.... themselves (in a friendly way of course)
- That when someone abuses glitch, this is rewarded rather than punished like the orb incident where even the abuser's dog got full +10 and some of the people that did not abuse got nothing...
- The fact that wanmei force their changes on our version so they can work less.

Now I know that this post sounds a little hateful and even some may say that is flaming or trolling. But the point Im traying to make here is that even if they do this servers merge, the result will probably be a disaster, a lot of player will lose their toon and even more people would quit and the ones who remains with their ruined accounts will send tickets but PWI/ARC Support would send them to look for help at this forum. Result more rage quit.
And when they finally realize that they have a big problem and partially fix it, it will be too late

Lets not forget things like:

http://pwi-forum.perfectworld.com/showthread.php?t=1642131
http://pwi-forum.perfectworld.com/showthread.php?t=1738581

Notice that in the second url there was still people unable to log in...

and in those incidents gms where not even doing anything (at least thats the official version lol)

Also people seem to forget that even if they get the merge perfect, still there will be a lot of players who will rage quit just because they do not understand the change and they refuse it, yes many people fear and rejects dramatic changes.

Now you all may wonder where do i get the first thing that i put as a fact on this post, the answer is simple: from most of the people that I knew during all my years of playing this game.
Most left the game during the following incidents:
- Server rollback and orb disaster
- update that killed fc (don't get me wrong here im not a fc fan but a lot of people was)
- update that killed dq items and even normal mob drops (and yes I know that during that time there was a lot of people playing but most of them were from other versions and they were only testing the expansion)

And most of those players at the moment of quiting were not raging about other players or the lack of factions/ oponents or bored... They were raging about PWE/ARC Games and their **** ups...

And yes before someone tell me that there was older incidents that make a lot of people quit, I know that but im talking about a massive amount of players leaving the game in a few days, to never return.

To be honest I see more possible that they just shut down the less populated servers than they take the bother to merge something. b:shutup

unrefuted · May 2015

OPKossy wrote: »

NW numbers are a poor representation at best. Players that don't like it won't go. Players that prefer PvE won't go. Players that don't want to bother with it after getting what they've needed from it won't go. Players that have other things to do/lives that prevent them from joining it in time won't go.... and those are all off the top of my head. Only a minority will actually do NW now that it's no longer a new thing and even with that minority only a small amount will do it regularly. So any assumptions about server population with NW numbers as its basis are worth absolutely nothing.

Let's see. At the height of NW there were maybe 1.6k players. If we assume even 10k active players, then you are basically telling me that the biggest event in PWI's history is attended by only 16% of the server. If you extend it to a million that's even more absurd. Nowadays we see numbers slowly dropping. Yes, some of it is due to people no longer attending. But more are due to people quitting.

Here's another test. How many factions still fill full 80s in TW? Biggest guilds used to have about 160 per tw weekend. Now?

Desdi - Sanctuary · May 2015

Then.. can we try to convince PWE merging Sanctuary and Archosaur will be really beneficial for them? b:avoid

I pick Sanctuary for the very obvious reasons.

Satyrion - Sanctuary · May 2015

Desdi - Sanctuary wrote: »

I pick Sanctuary for the very obvious reasons.

So why Archosaur and not Heaven's Tear? b:scorn

Desdi - Sanctuary · May 2015

Satyrion - Sanctuary wrote: »

So why Archosaur and not Heaven's Tear? b:scorn

I like how Archosaur sounds, not that it matters.
I picked Sanctuary when I played PWI for the first time because I liked how it sounded. b:laugh

Eirghan - Sanctuary · May 2015

Desdi - Sanctuary wrote: »

I like how Archosaur sounds, not that it matters.
I picked Sanctuary when I played PWI for the first time because I liked how it sounded. b:laugh

+1

And yeah vindi sucks. Stupid people trying to do events

<

SylenThunder - Twilight Temple · May 2015

DoodsWH - Sanctuary wrote: »

werent the EURO servers merged and how negative was the impact (not how they merged it cause the servers were new, not YEARS OLD WITH TONS OF DATA) , IE. mor server lag, hows tw and was it more beneficial then negative. see they already merged servers so there is no need to wonder, just ask the morai server ppl how it went. b:chuckle

When the EU servers were created initially, they were designed with the possibility of merging them. I did not research the overall impact on it from the EU forums before posting. I am aware though, that the main reason they were merged was because the individual server populations were so low, that there was a definite benefit to merging them. Our server populations haven't reached that point yet. Lost City got close a year and a half ago, but it's rebounded a bit since then. It's not like LC can be merged into anything anyway.

Alex_Gantz - Dreamweaver wrote: »

You are missing the biggest fact... the population on the servers is so LOW now, so the double or triple of people you talk about in your post will be basically the normal people the instances were prepared to deal with, so It won t be any over population but just a return to the normal amount of people that servers used to have.
Plus, TW is dead in pretty much every server.. pk too..
I was out of the game for almost an year, I came back like a month or so ago to see how much the server population has decreased (and i m on DW that is in average a server with a good population)..
So the point is the same as usual, if ARC/PW or whatever things that a merge will give them more money be sure that is going to happen. b:chuckle

Again, if they thought they could profit from it, they would be merging the servers I outlined in blue. It will be more difficult that the EU servers merging, but it's at least feasible. The population of the servers here is still not nearly as low as it was getting on the EU servers when they were merged.

I can guarantee though, that it is not monetarily feasible to merge any of the red servers at all. It's hard enough to get the developers at PW-CN to perform basic code fixes in a reasonable amount of time. Merging the red servers would require several hundred hours from a specialized dev team at a minimum. It's likely to require manual attention to several million entries within multiple databases. You don't spend 6 million dollars to get a 2 million dollar gain. It's a 4 million dollar loss. (the numbers are just vague things I tossed out there guys. don't read too much into it.)

Something else to consider is that the population data is being corrupted by all the AFK toons in reflection or botting. Or by that guy running 26 cat shops, and everyone else that muti-clients to solo instances for their 6 alt accounts.

Eirghan - Sanctuary · May 2015

and 24 pv openers b:victory

unrefuted · May 2015

I don't think they should wait until the server population is so low that the server is wasting money before merging. Because by then, the server is dead and there would be very little difference from shutting down the server. IMO they should merge early to keep the people who are on the verge of quitting and make them stay. Waiting til they already quit is a mistake.

Eirghan - Sanctuary · May 2015

unrefuted wrote: »

I don't think they should wait until the server population is so low that the server is wasting money before merging. Because by then, the server is dead and there would be very little difference from shutting down the server. IMO they should merge early to keep the people who are on the verge of quitting and make them stay. Waiting til they already quit is a mistake.

that would be forward thinking and proper business planning ny friend. PWE has already proven they lack most of that. Id find specific links referencing posts that back up my case, but well, i feel like this one does the job well enough.

Dreyani - Archosaur · May 2015

Desdi - Sanctuary wrote: »

I like how Archosaur sounds, not that it matters.
I picked Sanctuary when I played PWI for the first time because I liked how it sounded. b:laugh

I chose Archo for the same reason

avs33fan · May 2015

When it comes down to it. It will be a decision of dollars.

Will it be worth the cost of merging them? With all the bad possibilities that may happen, it would add to more money spent by them.
They would close the servers before merging them at this point because it would be more cost effective.

Redmenace - Heavens Tear · May 2015

__Sami__ - Archosaur wrote: »

As for small factions getting kicked out sooner, so what?

After all, Who Cares about anyone but the Big Factions?

.

Blancheneige - Heavens Tear · May 2015

Like I wrote in the other thread ; I doubt they still have the people with the technical knowledge to do a merger on their payroll.

And it's not a well known fact, but other PW servers were merged before.

It happened on the Malaysian servers when they merged their two servers into one.

KrittyCat - Dreamweaver · May 2015

DoodsWH - Sanctuary wrote: »

werent the EURO servers merged and how negative was the impact (not how they merged it cause the servers were new, not YEARS OLD WITH TONS OF DATA) , IE. mor server lag, hows tw and was it more beneficial then negative. see they already merged servers so there is no need to wonder, just ask the morai server ppl how it went. b:chuckle

As Sylen said, the EU servers were created with the possibility of merger. They were a test subject, and shared a name database.

That's really the biggest issue here - dealing with the names databases. The only servers that could be potentially merged are those that share a name database, because changing names across multiple databases can easily lead to corruption and/or server crashes.

SylenThunder - Sanctuary wrote: »

When the EU servers were created initially, they were designed with the possibility of merging them. I did not research the overall impact on it from the EU forums before posting. I am aware though, that the main reason they were merged was because the individual server populations were so low, that there was a definite benefit to merging them. Our server populations haven't reached that point yet. Lost City got close a year and a half ago, but it's rebounded a bit since then. It's not like LC can be merged into anything anyway.

Again, if they thought they could profit from it, they would be merging the servers I outlined in blue. It will be more difficult that the EU servers merging, but it's at least feasible. The population of the servers here is still not nearly as low as it was getting on the EU servers when they were merged.

Exactly. The EU servers were so low in population, it was either merge them or close them. PWE didn't want to open something to only have to close it a few months later, so they made the decision to merge the servers.

Annalyse - Heavens Tear · May 2015

It would also totally mess up things for players like myself that have characters on other servers and not enough space in one account for all of them. I'd quit if they forced me to delete characters I put so much time and effort into.

Merging Servers ~ The Full Facts

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