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  Entering the village, the first sign of the enemy’s presence was an armor piercing shell glancing off the curved hull of the lead tank. The shot arced wildly past Sergeant Burnett’s own Sherman, the man whipping his head around to follow it as crashed through the corner of a building and buried into a hillside a few hundred yards behind him. That was when he spotted the Panzer IV rolling up behind them from the side.  “PeeZee Four behind us, we’re boxed in, ambush, ambush!” he shouted into the radio, which was only adding to the chaos as Beginner’s Luck, the lead tank, reported an AT gun in front of them and someone else was saying something about an MG team. True to it's name, the lead tank had gotten lucky, it was an M4A1 Sherman, built with a cast-metal hull. Thicker and curved, the front hull armor could, on rare occasion, deflect shots that would penetrate a standard M4 Sherman like Burnett's, which had a flat, welded hull. “Douglass, get this turret turned around!” Burnett shouted as he threw a smoke grenade overboard. The smoke would make it harder for the enemy to hit them, but it wouldn’t last long. “What about that AT Gun?!” “Let the lead tanks worry about the Pak, we’ve got AP loaded, we’re engaging the Panzer!” Burnett’s tank, the Berlin Express, swung its turret around to the rear where the Panzer IV had come to a halt behind a small ridge with only its turret visible. The Panzer IV was roughly comparable in firepower and armor to his own M4 Sherman, and with both of them hull down from the other, it was anyone’s guess who’d win in a shootout.  The Panzer IV fired, missing one of the other Shermans behind the Express. “Alright, let’s get his attention! Target is the enemy Panzer, close range, 200 yards. Open fire!”  “Damnit, we hit dirt! Reload and adjust upwa-” The Panzer IV’s cannon barked again, another shot streaked past the Express and Burnett heard it impact on something close behind him. Turning around, Burnett was just in time to see every hatch on the Beginner’s Luck blow outward with jets of flame. The M4A1's frontal hull armor may have been a bit tougher, but the rear armor was just as weak as any other Sherman, and the Pz IV had just delivered a shot straight to the back of the turret, setting off the tank’s ammo storage. The whole crew likely died instantly. The AT gun also opened fire, slamming a 75mm shell right into the front armor of another Sherman, Bucket of Bolts, with the surviving crew immediately bailing out in case the stricken tank caught fire. Burnett’s loader threw another 75mm armor piercing round into the chamber. “Gun up!” “Fire!”   Burnett watched as the AP round slammed into the Panzer’s thick gun mantlet and bounced off, leaving a small gouge in the armor, but nothing more. “Gun up!” “Fire!” Another shell went hurtling towards the panzer, but this just impacted into the dirt in front of it like their first shot had. Burnett watched as the Panzer's turret adjusted slightly, taking aim at his own tank. Before it could fire though, a shot from one of the other Sherman’s slammed into the German tank. The panzer exploded magnificently as the tank's ammo set off. So powerful was the force of the explosion that the turret was blown upwards, clean off the tank, landing a few feet away from the burning hull.  “Nice kill Boop!” Burnett shouted into the radio as he looked over at the successful Sherman nearby. Betty Boop sported a longer barreled cannon and a risque depiction of its namesake. Another explosion sounded, Bomb Here, the fifth tank in his platoon, reported the destruction of the AT gun. A tense minute passed as the remaining Shermans strained to notice new threats, but none presented themselves. “You know sarge, I wish we had one of those Seventy Sixers, the fives can’t kill tanks for poo poo.”  Before Burnett could reply to his gunner all hell erupted around them as enemy artillery rained down on the village. The artillery was accurate, pre-plotted fire, but was mercifully brief, the Germans must’ve fired only a single salvo before packing up to retreat. It’d done enough damage though, radio reports from the task force’s infantry platoons reported over a dozen casualties.  Surveying the burning village, the wrecked panzer, and the flaming pyre that was Beginner’s Luck, Burnett sighed to himself. “Gonna be a looong war…”   Armoured Commander: The WWII Tank Commander Roguelike Hello and welcome to one of the more unique Roguelikes I've ever encountered! As you can see from the battle above, Armoured Commander (or ArmCom for short) is a Roguelike that puts you in the role of the commander of a single Sherman medium tank in occupied France as you battle your way towards Berlin and, more importantly, do your best to survive! I find this game quite fun and challenging and I want to show it off to people who might not have heard about it. In addition, I plan on explaining various game mechanics (as I understand them) and the strategies I use to survive the ordeals of armored combat. While based on the 1987 Avalon Hill solitaire board game/wargame "Patton's Best", ArmCom has evolved in many ways, with the game's solo developer, Gregory Adam Scott (also known as Rev_Sudasana), adding new features and changing others. The game is still in early development and Mr. Scott is making frequent updates, sometimes daily! Currently ArmCom features one campaign (the US 4th Armored Division), 17 Sherman variants, and a large variety of German Tanks, SPGs, AT Guns, and assorted infantry and infantry support vehicles. If you're interested in playing the game yourself, you can find it here. Oh and don't worry, my future posts will not use the awful fiction prose I used above.  Join the War Effort! The primary goal of the game is to survive from late July 1944 to May of 1945. That is roughly ten months of combat, and like any good roguelike, I will die, probably a lot! While each tank holds a crew of five unlucky bastards, the tank's commander is considered to be your character, and its game over if he suffers a tragic fate. To be honestly I rarely make it later than the end of August before dying or being sent home with terrible injuries. Sometimes I have upwards of a half dozen tanks shot out from under me during that period of time. My last career ended in early September when I was sent home due to injuries received when my tank, Cannonball Six was knocked out during an ill-advised shoot out with a Panther. The good news is, you can be one of those unlucky bastards, as a recent update by the dev allowed crew to be nicknamed! In order to avoid the RL Megathread getting cluttered with "dwarf me" posts, I've set up a Google Form for anyone who is interested in taking the fight to the Nazis. Just fill in your name here and you'll be burned alive in a wrecked tank in no time!  Updates: Update 1: Starting a new game and DIE, PANTHER, DIE! Update 2: Day 1 concluded. Pack it in, Pak! Update 3: Day 2, On Track to Avranches Galaga Galaxian fucked around with this message at 04:16 on May 21, 2015 |
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May 17, 2015 18:21
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Could try asking the Sandcastle. Also, I'm playing ArmCom for the LP and good grief, this Panther just. will. not. die.  My Kingdom for a 76L armed Sherman!
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May 18, 2015 01:46
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 Update 1: Starting a new game and DIE, PANTHER, DIE! 
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May 18, 2015 12:20
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Yeah, we can just call in a resupply, I'm not sure if it has a random chance of failure in ArmCom, but in Patton's Best it was a 70% chance of success, so we shouldn't have too much trouble.senrath posted:It sounds like this battle was an extreme anomaly, most won't take this long or use this much ammo before one side dies. It rather was! Battles can last that long if enemy reinforcement events keep popping up, but expending that much ammo on a single target is pretty uncommon. Normally it would only be a handful of turns before I kill it via one of those side shots, friendly action would kill it, or it would decided to actually shoot at me and blown me away pretty easily. That said, I was being pretty liberal with my ammunition there, but mostly because I'd never had a fight draw out like that before! Honestly the thing that stings the most is we ended that fight with negative six victory points. Actually, nevermind, what really stings the most is the knowledge that if I had shot that Panther early on instead of the loving Marder, I probably would've killed it. I just know I would've! Of course, fate being cruel as it is, that just means the Marder probably would've killed me. Could've been worse I guess, could've been Tigers. Galaga Galaxian fucked around with this message at 17:44 on May 18, 2015 |
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May 18, 2015 17:27
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Update 2: Day 1 concluded. Pack it in, Pak! 
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May 18, 2015 20:46
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Galaga Galaxian posted:
Me and my big mouth, guess what the Dev just added in today's update? Rev_Sudasana posted:Uploaded 6.8, which adds Panzerfaust attacks!  
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May 19, 2015 00:54
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Well, I know for a fact he is reading them.
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May 19, 2015 01:00
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Well, start writing those updates then, sucka! Yeah, the thread has me itching to play some of these RL again or try ones I've never done before. For example, I booted up Necrodancer and gave it a few shakes. I just can't get use to the timing of the beat. I keep wanting to just mash the keys and go go go go! 
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May 19, 2015 01:23
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Nah, I like the beat mechanic, I'm just bad at it apparently. I've tried recalibrating a few times and that never seems to suggest any latency changes. I guess I'm just bad. Does the music use an unusual timing tempo or something?
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May 19, 2015 02:20
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This is a thread for showing off Roguelikes, not for being competent at them. If you have a RL you think is cool,  .
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May 19, 2015 04:27
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Someone should do Caves of Qud. I lucked out and got one of the steam beta keys posted in the RL a while back, but I took one look at all the crazy options and my eyes just kinda glazed over in confusion. Tried one character and was randomly murdered by the guy I think I was supposed to get the beginning quest from. Not sure why, but certainly a very Roguelike way to die for the first time!
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May 19, 2015 06:24
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Update 3: Day 2, On Track to Avranches 
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May 21, 2015 04:16
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Looking forward to seeing Agent's experiences in CoQud. Got Qud myself during one of Unormal's giveaways in the RL thread. I haven't gotten too far into it myself (on the quest to the grit gate as a trueman eunuch). If he, somehow, fails to live up to this, I might give it a go myself. Though I should really do another update for ArmCom. Instead, I've been playing NecroDancer and Dungeonmans the last couple days. Speaking of, someone should do a Dungeonmans LP.
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May 25, 2015 02:21
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I'll try to do an ArmCom update today or Wedensday (mostly busy tomorrow). This thread is bad for me, I've gotten distracted trying so many new roguelikes (or replaying others I've tried before). Speaking of... When you finish up with Classic Rogue, will you be moving onto other Rogue descendants? I just started giving Brogue a try and its proving pretty cool.
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May 25, 2015 20:51
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Floodkiller posted:You could try out Dungeonmans. The thread is over here as well! I'll second Dungeonmans. Bought it this weekend and played a few lives. Its modestly humorous and a pretty respectable RL to boot!
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May 26, 2015 00:49
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What an irresponsible evil sorcerer, just leaving his Amulet of Power laying on the floor, next to the stairs. 
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May 26, 2015 16:26
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Frankomatic posted:Wow, this game looks pretty interesting. I think I'll end up giving it a go once it becomes available through Steam. Kinda makes me think of the much older game Alphaman, but more in depth and polished. Caves of Qud is all fun and games until you die from an overwhelming case of Chute Crabs.
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May 27, 2015 05:38
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Someone do Smart Kobolds. Someone who doesn't know the trick. 
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May 27, 2015 22:22
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The answer to anyone wanting to play any roguelike in this thread is
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May 28, 2015 22:39
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Sadly my save file is broken! Such is the perils of playing a game in active development where new updates come out in the space of weeks or even days.  But I don't mind too much, to be honest I've been diving deep into other roguelikes because of this thread and haven't felt as motivated to play ArmCom the last week or so. Don't get me wrong I still like the game! I still heartily encourage people to try the game yourself! But I've shown off what general gameplay looks like (Though I failed at getting killed), so I think I'll set it aside for now and do something else, not sure what. That said, Rev Sudasana is continuing to make improvements, he recently made the campaign day map prettier, changed roads so they generate more sensibly/realistically (using an A*s algorithim I think?) and added Airstrikes! Also a new terrain sector, bogs, which are impassible and have to be driven around.  Oh and since I did fail to get our tank KO'd, here is what the crew fate screen looks like (this is a sligthly older version):   Snides.  Though actually there is a chance the tank just outright explodes before this screen pops up and everyone dies.
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May 29, 2015 18:22
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So what happens if you stick a Bag of Holding inside another Bag of Holding?
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May 29, 2015 20:25
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So the user and everything in a modest radius isn't also anihilated as the universe tries to divide by Zero? Lame. Definitely a step down from AD&D.
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May 29, 2015 20:35
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I prefer Retrodays' simplicity, but I'm gonna guesd most people will vote for chest or something.
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Jun 2, 2015 20:14
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Retrodays isn't mismatched. ASCII is good too, especially if you tweak it to be square.
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Jun 2, 2015 21:52
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Turtlicious posted:So Pro-Ascii dudes, how is this for middle ground? Here is another example of the Retrodays tileset from my current game. The outside of my shelter is a loving mess, and you can see lots of misc crap all over.  I don't really care about the mess, because I'm getting ready to leave. I finished work on that vehicle in the top left, transforming a "Hippie Van" into a mobile base that is very close approximation of this:  Right down to a Browning M2 mounted on the roof. Though mine has solar panels on the roof to make sure the minifridge, kitchen unit, stereo, and other goodies don't kill the battery while its sitting around.
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Jun 3, 2015 07:05
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My current Cataclysm character is rapidly evolving into a hybrid of a STALKER protagonist and Adam Jensen and I still give MOOSE a wide berth whenever possible. Rough luck. Also, I'm surprised you didn't push your luck and go for the ice cream cart. A mobile loot chest is certainly useful.
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Jun 13, 2015 09:18
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KillHour posted:Procrastinate? Me? Never. Why not just eat some snow, that should work, right?
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Jun 14, 2015 21:26
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The Devs have repeatedly say they have no plans of putting the game on sale until some time after it leaves early access. That said, I was gifted it a couple days ago (thanks Moki!) and I'm enjoying it so far. Its quite difficult for me though, as I'm not that great at shmup/bullethells/whateverthisis. The music is awesome though, can't say no to a nuclear mutant fishman playing a mean guitar: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZDT8L4GB9-M
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Jun 17, 2015 09:58
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Wish I'd seen these before it went back up to $10 instead of $ 7.50 on sale. Still very tempting!
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Jun 19, 2015 05:00
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 Don't let the strange man in the furs bother you! Welcome to the UnReal World!
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Jul 1, 2015 07:27
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 Trades and Tutorials Where in I accomplish some simple tasks and try to buy a bunch of axes.
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Jul 1, 2015 19:08
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A Fortuitous Fox
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Jul 2, 2015 08:37
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Oh. I'm not sure about that. All I know is that blunt damage is less likely to harm hides. Its probably good I missed that arrow shot and didn't land a solid spear thrust as it probably would've spoiled the hide. You can actually craft blunt tipped arrows for hunting small game if desired. AKAIK, foxes are mostly hunted via trapping. There is even a specialized trap you can make just for them. Inadequately posted:The deal with fox furs is that you can occasionally find foreign traders wandering about, and they always have high-end weapons/armour to trade. However, the only currency they accept are fox and lynx furs. They are kinda valuable to the townspeople but not significantly so. Ah. I knew the foreign traders only deal in furs, but I didn't realize they were picky about what kind of furs. As for travel, I hadn't considered going along the coast. My plan was to travel along the nearby river that runs from the northeast to the coast for as long as I can. That'll get me most of the way and then just travel overland until I hit the huge river linked lakes near Kaumo lands.
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Jul 2, 2015 13:33
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But the coast doesn't (I assume) have rapids I can use to acquire delicious and sizable trout and salmon from. Also I reread my last update and man I spotted a bunch of errors. I shouldn't write lp posts so late at night.
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Jul 2, 2015 21:31
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I thought seals were only in the north? I admit I base this assumption completely on the fact the Seal-Tribe live in the north.
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Jul 2, 2015 22:15
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Competent Fisherman Stupid question, are my updates ok so far? The last few I've pretty much been writing as I play, because I tend to forget what exactly I did when I try to write them after the fact (even with screenshots to remind me). I guess I'm just worried its coming out a bit too rambling/stream of conciousnessy. Galaga Galaxian fucked around with this message at 07:21 on Jul 3, 2015 |
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Jul 3, 2015 07:17
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Ok. Thanks guys, I'll put the pictures first in the future.Glazius posted:It seems you've come a long way already, as far as survival goes. I'm not sure I'd say that. If I hadn't had those nets I'd be really hurting right now. It really depends on if that haul of fish is something I can consistently depend on. Odds are things will be feast or famine for most of my journey. The good news is that once I reach somewhere I'm interested in settling down at for more then a couple days I've got at least one other nice food/resource generator I csn put effort into.
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Jul 3, 2015 13:33
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wiegieman posted:You should fish and place nets in deep water or rapids. There were no rapids close to the river mouth. And I did place the nets in deeper water. Unless you mean several map tiles from shore
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Jul 3, 2015 16:16
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Reindeer Games Thanks. Yeah, trap fences are cool and I'll be aiming to set one up when I reach a location I intend to actually settle down at, until then though I'll have to rely on fishing, nets, active hunting, and maybe smaller traps for food. I am new, but I also read a couple useful guides, which did a good job of preparing me for the challenges of basic survival. That said, I still have not played a character long enough to reach winter, let alone survived it, nor have I ever fought another human being. The only real fight I've had in the past was being attacked by a lynx, and I got lucky and disabled it in one good spear hit, dodging the one attack it made against me. A good chunk of my success probably lays in the fact that I cheese character creation and chose easy start mode. Anyways, I moved the images before the appropriate text in this one, and in addition I did far less cropping of pictures. Not sure if that'll be an improvement or not. Galaga Galaxian fucked around with this message at 21:05 on Jul 3, 2015 |
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Jul 3, 2015 21:01
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| # ¿ May 4, 2024 05:08 |
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 A Great Voyage Well, I'm glad that is behind me.
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Jul 4, 2015 05:41
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