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 What is The Walking Dead? It's an episodic series of games (for PC, Mac, Xbox 360, PS3 and iOS) with a focus on social dynamics. There are some light adventure game puzzle elements and action sequences, but the meat of the gameplay involves the navigation of tense situations with timed dialog prompts that might be familiar to those of you who played Alpha Protocol. Unlike that game, your choices don't branch to a crazy degree or have a tremendous impact on the overall structure of the story. They do, however, establish your relationships with your fellow survivors and represent how your character chooses to react to the situations in front of him. Trying to accomplish a relatively low key goal without betraying the trust of an ally can be far more engaging than blasting your way through a huge setpiece in a typical action game. It's an amazingly well-written game, with a dedication to its scope that is extremely rare. Where other titles would take shortcuts with bombast and mindless spectacle, The Walking Dead shows restraint and trusts its audience. - Is this based on the TV show or the comic? Telltale treats the comic as canon. It's set at the outset of the outbreak when Rick is still hospitalized. Although the game mostly follows an entirely new cast of characters, some of the faces that pop up will probably be familiar to those of you who read the comics and watch the show. - UGH! Zombies are so played out! I absolutely refuse to have anything to do with them! There sure have been a lot of zombies in pop culture lately. You know what, though? There's a reason why they were so effective in the first place. Most games and movies just treat zombies as stand ins for generic bad guys - slow targets to inflict violence upon. That's a waste, and it contributes to the oversaturation of the concept. The Walking Dead correctly treats zombies as a constant reminder of how hosed you are. They're slow and stupid, but there are always more. You will never be completely safe again. If you slip up just once, you're gone. The zombies are used almost exclusively to heighten the interactions within your group. Every encounter with a zombie is a unique and important event in itself. You aren't mowing them down en masse. In fact, you rarely fight them at all. When you do, the encounter is tense and dirty and often accompanied by a human saving your rear end or letting you down. - Is this like Game X by Telltale? The Walking Dead is a significant departure from their earlier work. It's not a straightforward adventure game. It isn't the QTE-fest that was Jurassic Park. It has a heavy emphasis on narrative, and its art style really comes together. Imagine if Heavy Rain was a good game with characters that actually seemed like human beings and a story that obeyed some sense of internal logic. It's sort of like that, with the aforementioned resemblance to Alpha Protocol's dialog.  Seasons Season 1 The first season took the form of five episodes, released from April to November of 2012. It follows Lee Everett's attempt to care for a young girl named Clementine as the world around them crumbles. Saying more than that would be too much. If you're worried about the game being an escort mission with annoying kid, don't be. Clem's presence is that of an observer, making you think about your actions just a bit more. She's more of a motivating factor than any sort of liability. Also, she's fantastically written and acted. Season 1 won all sorts of accolades. Sean Vanaman and Jake Rodkin accepted an award at the Spike VGAs while Samuel Jackson stood nearby. I named The Walking Dead my favorite game of the year. It's difficult to tell which of these moments felt more rewarding for the creators. Season 2 Currently in the works. As more info comes along I'll update the top of the OP to let everyone know.  Technical Help There are some issues - particularly on the PC - that can bring the experience to a screeching halt. Thankfully, there are also steps you can take to skirt around these annoyances. - My save game isn't carrying over! Ahhh poo poo! poo poo poo poo poo poo! poo poo! Follow this advice from the PC Gaming Wiki (thanks to RightClickSaveAs for the link): quote:The game stores two copies of a file called prefs.prop on your computer in different locations, and sometimes these can get out of sync. This has been especially noted to happen when moving from Episode 2 to 3, and Episode 4 to 5. It is highly recommended that you back up all your saves and both prefs.prop files in a completely separate location before you do this. Steam: C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\the walking dead\Pack\default Windows 7/8: C:\Documents and Settings\%Username%\My Documents\Telltale Games\The Walking Dead OSX: Users/<user>/Library/Application\ Support/Telltale\ Games/TheWalkingDead/prefs.prop - The game won't start at all! If you're on Steam, try right clicking on the game and choose to verify the cache. Are you on Windows 8? Do you have an Xbox controller plugged in? That's your problem. Either unplug the controller and play with the mouse and keyboard or download this version of dinput8.dll and put it into your \steamapps\common\The Walking Dead\ folder. - I'm getting some weird performance issues. There's stuttering, and sometimes the screen goes dark even though I can hear the game's sound effects continuing. This is likely an issue stemming from certain ATI video cards. Disable shadows in the game, and that should resolve the problem. Thanks to the art style the shadows don't really make a huge difference anyway. Corin Tucker's Stalker fucked around with this message at Jan 8, 2013 around 13:26 |
| # ? Apr 23, 2012 22:27 |
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| # ? May 25, 2013 23:52 |
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I am a big fan of the Walking Dead comics (and partial to the 1st season of the TV series). I feel like I was one of the few people who enjoyed telltales take on the Jurassic park series, I know what to expect from this take on the Walking Dead from a game play stand point. I think it's the same reaction we got from Jurassic Park with this game, Don't expect anything ground breaking and if you are a die hard fan then you should get some enjoyment out of it. Then again I could be totally wrong. Looking forward to this games release and have already per-ordered!
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| # ? Apr 23, 2012 22:47 |
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I'm tentatively stoked for this game. I liked the Sam and Max/Back to the Future Stuff, but sorry Telltale Jurassic Park was not a fun game, however the very idea of having to make harsh emotional choices on a regular basis, and having survivors not make it across the episodes because of those choices rockets this game up into the preorder territory. I'll be giving a few first impressions about this game tomorrow as well, hopefully it's as good as it sounds, and if it is, hopefully enough people give Telltale money over it, because stuff like that needs to come back to/start getting added to video games.
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| # ? Apr 23, 2012 22:54 |
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It looks like they have made some significant strides with the tech side of things. The poor performance of the engine really got in the way of the experience in some of their previous games. This sounds fun; I like the idea of the tough choices aspect, too. That piques my interest in spite of the fact that I've never seen the show nor read the comic. Hell, I'm beyond sick of zombies, but I like good games.
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| # ? Apr 23, 2012 23:52 |
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The bit of gameplay footage they showed ahead of released was nothing but quick time events. Didnt seem very interesting.
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| # ? Apr 24, 2012 00:28 |
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Jake addressed the QTE topic in the official forum:quote:Across the game we want you to feel a direct connection to Lee and his actions, and we don't think QTEs are the way to do that. In the exploratory and dialog parts of the game, we want you to feel like there's a lot to do, and like you can contribute to the conversations in a more finely grained and frequent way than you might normally in a Telltale game, and we want that feeling of fine grained interaction and tight feedback to carry over into the moments where action matters, too. I am curious about the "we want action, every hit, every touch, to directly correlate to a button you press" part. That could be taken several ways. Corin Tucker's Stalker fucked around with this message at Apr 24, 2012 around 12:06 |
| # ? Apr 24, 2012 11:58 |
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Corin Tucker's Stalker posted:I am curious about the "we want action, every hit, every touch, to directly correlate to a button you press" part. That could be taken several ways. Take it the simplest way possible! That answer was specifically in response to the abstracted disconnect you can get from QTEs. In Jurassic Park and many QTE-dominant games you could be swirling an analog stick or mashing a face button while the character on screen was appearing to go about their business doong an animation in a way disconnected from what you were doing with the controller. Even in the more actioney bits of Walking Dead we've tried to make sure that there's a direct kinetic feedback loop between you doing something with the games controls, and that resulting in something specific happening on screen. You press button, man on screen do something, video games, I guess. At least as often as possible. ja2ke fucked around with this message at Apr 24, 2012 around 14:36 |
| # ? Apr 24, 2012 14:33 |
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Cool, the bad way to interpret that would have been "you push an arbitrary button at the right time". I'm glad you were talking about the actual feel of the input.
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| # ? Apr 24, 2012 14:56 |
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Corin Tucker's Stalker posted:Cool, the bad way to interpret that would have been "you push an arbitrary button at the right time". I'm glad you were talking about the actual feel of the input. As has been shown in gameplay videos (I think) if a zombie grabs you and you struggle to get free, it gets mashy for a second but that's the exception not the rule.
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| # ? Apr 24, 2012 15:54 |
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The Verge's Justin McElroy just posted a review that paints the game in a very positive light, giving it a 9 out of 10. Here are some quotes:quote:The Walking Dead is a game about consequences, about making decisions based on little more than gut instinct. This is a game where your choices stick, and the result is one of the most intense gaming experiences in my recent memory. quote:These are desperate characters on the brink of destruction, so there's little you can do to make things "better," just ... different. As the player is freed from the burden of having to choose "correctly" they can just experience the story as it unfolds and not fret too much about their inability to reload a save before they made a tough call.
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| # ? Apr 24, 2012 16:36 |
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I'm kinda confused. I thought it was out today, but the official site still asks for pre-orders...?
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| # ? Apr 24, 2012 16:41 |
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It's unlocking in Steam in about an hour while per-orders are ending there in 15mins.
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| # ? Apr 24, 2012 16:45 |
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If this has even half the choices and consequences that Alpha Protocol had I'll die from happiness. I've never been let down by a Telltale game (Jurassic Park was odd but I still enjoyed it as a "Heavy Rain meets dinosaurs" kind of way.) so I'm looking forward to the Walking Dead. Only thing is, I don't read comics so I'm afraid the plot/characters will be confusing for me.
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| # ? Apr 24, 2012 17:01 |
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Red Mundus posted:If this has even half the choices and consequences that Alpha Protocol had I'll die from happiness. Plot is zombie attack. Characters are people that haven't been killed yet. It's really simple to get into at any point.
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| # ? Apr 24, 2012 17:04 |
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Red Mundus posted:If this has even half the choices and consequences that Alpha Protocol had I'll die from happiness. You should be fine since this game's story doesn't have the much to do with the comic/tv show.
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| # ? Apr 24, 2012 17:05 |
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It's the number 2 seller on Steam right now so sounds like it's selling pretty decently so far.
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| # ? Apr 24, 2012 17:08 |
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theblackw0lf posted:It's the number 2 seller on Steam right now so sounds like it's selling pretty decently so far.
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| # ? Apr 24, 2012 17:11 |
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This game looks like Alpha Protocol's dialogue system met zombies. Basically, it has to be good!
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| # ? Apr 24, 2012 17:19 |
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Any chance this thing is going to run on a early 2011 13" Macbook Pro with just the HD 3000 graphics? The system requirements say that it's not recommended, but Jurassic Park ran just fine. I don't want to drop $25 on something that will never run. 
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| # ? Apr 24, 2012 17:55 |
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Game is finally out, but I was looking through the options and the 'controls' menu just shows me a picture of a 360 controller, what's up with that? I don't even have one attached or anything.
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| # ? Apr 24, 2012 18:46 |
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Geight posted:Game is finally out, but I was looking through the options and the 'controls' menu just shows me a picture of a 360 controller, what's up with that? I don't even have one attached or anything. That is weird. You use WASD / Mouse to play the game when a controller isn't plugged in.
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| # ? Apr 24, 2012 18:50 |
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I went into the gameplay options and my mouse and keyboard no longer work. I re-launch the game and now when I go to change the resolution the same thing happens.
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| # ? Apr 24, 2012 19:06 |
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ja2ke posted:Take it the simplest way possible! That answer was specifically in response to the abstracted disconnect you can get from QTEs. In Jurassic Park and many QTE-dominant games you could be swirling an analog stick or mashing a face button while the character on screen was appearing to go about their business doong an animation in a way disconnected from what you were doing with the controller. Even in the more actioney bits of Walking Dead we've tried to make sure that there's a direct kinetic feedback loop between you doing something with the games controls, and that resulting in something specific happening on screen. You press button, man on screen do something, video games, I guess. At least as often as possible. So what you're saying is that when I press a button, something awesome happens?
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| # ? Apr 24, 2012 19:08 |
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Store page(europe) says that it is out, yet I can not download/install. Rebooting steam did nothing. Anyone else run into this?
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| # ? Apr 24, 2012 19:15 |
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I played about an hour... it's pretty decent, but there are some major stuttering issues between camera changes in cutscenes (the audio will keep playing but it will take about 3 seconds for the camera to actually switch), which has completely put me off. Also, the game will randomly alt tab when clicking, which is incredibly annoying when you only have a few seconds to choose a dialogue option.
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| # ? Apr 24, 2012 19:19 |
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Mindblast posted:Store page(europe) says that it is out, yet I can not download/install. Rebooting steam did nothing. Anyone else run into this? Yeah, exactly same. Let me play!!! edit: just restarted and it let me do it Olewithmilk fucked around with this message at Apr 24, 2012 around 19:55 |
| # ? Apr 24, 2012 19:53 |
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honeymustard posted:I played about an hour... it's pretty decent, but there are some major stuttering issues between camera changes in cutscenes (the audio will keep playing but it will take about 3 seconds for the camera to actually switch), which has completely put me off. Also, the game will randomly alt tab when clicking, which is incredibly annoying when you only have a few seconds to choose a dialogue option. On your computer or on PS3? Just curious if you're underspec or if it wasn't properly optimized for a console.
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| # ? Apr 24, 2012 19:53 |
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Well I just beat this in one sitting. Aside from some annoying technical issues like audio glitches and camera stuttering it was rather good. I found myself more attached to these characters then most of the characters on the show already. The choices seem very well done and should greatly impact the next episodes. I wasn't thrilled with having to pay for the whole season at once but after playing it im pretty confident it will be worth it.
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| # ? Apr 24, 2012 19:55 |
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So far, so good. I'm really liking the characters so far and the tension is amazing. Also, everything feels very "real" so to speak. Not a lot of jump scares and people act pretty reasonably. So far all the characters I've interacted with behave like you would expect them to in stressful situations. Only thing that bugs me is the audio sounds low quality for some reason (could be my headphones) and the menu not recognizing the mouse or keyboard.
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| # ? Apr 24, 2012 20:00 |
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The audio sounds like poo poo. I have a sound card and really nice headphones which is what I was using while playing and its just bad quality.
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| # ? Apr 24, 2012 20:03 |
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Just played about half an hour. This is probably one of the nicer "Zombie" games I've played because it's very much an (early) Romero style thing which I liked about the Walking Dead. Zombies are the background, the real meat of the situation is how hosed up people are and become when the thin veneer of society crumbles.
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| # ? Apr 24, 2012 20:03 |
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theBeaz posted:On your computer or on PS3? Just curious if you're underspec or if it wasn't properly optimized for a console. PC. I'm on an i5 and 6850 card. The issues (well, the stuttering at least - the alt tabbing is probably dual monitor related) are being reported everywhere.
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| # ? Apr 24, 2012 20:18 |
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Just finished the game. For the plot choices, I went with (major spoilers) Duck and Carly.. I like how at the end, it shows you the percentage of players who did what, reminded me of Catherine. But for some reason, it showed me as (pharmacy spoiler) siding with Larry instead of Kenny, when I bitched Larry out. honeymustard posted:PC. I'm on an i5 and 6850 card. The issues (well, the stuttering at least - the alt tabbing is probably dual monitor related) are being reported everywhere. I had the stuttering too, also have an ATI card. I've heard it's a problem with ATI drivers.
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| # ? Apr 24, 2012 20:21 |
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Anyone else not have a drat mouse cursor? edit: Now it's a giant black cube  edit2: Everyone has black souless eyes  edit the third: Verified the game cache and now its downloading more. Hopefully that fixes it RentACop fucked around with this message at Apr 24, 2012 around 20:35 |
| # ? Apr 24, 2012 20:24 |
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I'm thinking about picking up the first episode of this when it launches on PSN tonight, but I have a few questions if anyone can answer them: - How important is familiarity with the Walking Dead franchise as a whole in terms of getting a lot out of the story in this? I've never read any of the comic or watched any of the show (Though I think I read this is based more on the former), so does this stand on its own in terms of story and characters, or is it reliant on stuff that I already need to be familiar with? - How much of the gameplay actually revolves around traditional adventure game puzzles as opposed to simple actions, environment interactions, and the like? As much as I love the genre, I've always been pretty bad at wrapping my head around those, and the idea of more games using Heavy Rain-esque gameplay to deliver their stories excites me, though I did hear bad things about Jurassic Park. - Are there any real-time action scenes outside of occasional QTEs, as in actual shooting akin to CoD or Gears?
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| # ? Apr 24, 2012 20:30 |
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Is there any danger of spoiling future episodes of the show by playing this game?
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| # ? Apr 24, 2012 21:07 |
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The game is based on the comic more than the show so I would say a little bit.
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| # ? Apr 24, 2012 21:09 |
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Your First Sim posted:I had the stuttering too, also have an ATI card. I've heard it's a problem with ATI drivers. Apparently turning off shadows fixes the stuttering.
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| # ? Apr 24, 2012 21:19 |
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Behonkiss posted:I'm thinking about picking up the first episode of this when it launches on PSN tonight, but I have a few questions if anyone can answer them: No familiarity at all. I've never read or watched anything regarding the Walking dead and the game is very much playable and understandable. At no point did I question who someone is or what they were referencing. Everything is self-contained. Behonkiss posted:- How much of the gameplay actually revolves around traditional adventure game puzzles as opposed to simple actions, environment interactions, and the like? As much as I love the genre, I've always been pretty bad at wrapping my head around those, and the idea of more games using Heavy Rain-esque gameplay to deliver their stories excites me, though I did hear bad things about Jurassic Park. Behonkiss posted:- Are there any real-time action scenes outside of occasional QTEs, as in actual shooting akin to CoD or Gears?
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| # ? Apr 24, 2012 21:21 |
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| # ? May 25, 2013 23:52 |
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So how many goonjeeps had to get busted for this to come to fruition?
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| # ? Apr 24, 2012 21:22 |
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