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[Let's Read] ARES Magazine
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<blockquote data-quote="(un)reason" data-source="post: 7556774" data-attributes="member: 27780"><p><strong><u>Ares 15 - Nightmare House: Fall 1983</u></strong></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>68 pages. Huh. So even Ares gets a Halloween themed issue, such is it's popularity. Does horror count as sci-fi or fantasy, or as in novels, it's own genre due to the different audience? Oh well, at least it keeps the variety up for me. And I do remember enjoying the October issues of Dragon more than average. Let's see if that's true here as well, or it'll scare me in the bad way. </p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Ares Log: This isn't saying anything new, just reiterating that this is now the Sci-fi counterpart to Dragon. If you like both, buy both! Gotta collect 'em all! And since TSR is primarily an RPG company by this point, with plenty of sci-fi games, they're going to be appearing a lot more in here in the future. Yeah, nothing surprising about that at all. Not worth commenting on more. </p><p> </p><p></p><p></p><p>Matters of Fact: Science for Science Fiction is rebranded and expanded now it's counterpart is gone, with a new writer, and a very cramped four column per page formatting. The individual topics are just as shallowly covered as before though, apart from the last one about 2010, the sequel to 2001, which gets an extensive sidebar about the gaming implications of von neuman machines, (do spawn cascading undead count?) and stats for several of them in the Star Frontiers system. Also pretty interesting is a study on the vast variety of micro ecosystems created by human gardens, where each one in a road can differ dramatically, and thus there's far more ecological niches than would occur naturally in a space that size. This relates closely to another piece on fractal geometry, and how area to volume ratios of a place can change dramatically depending on the precision of your measuring tool. Some utopians think the world would be better with no borders, but in reality, borders are where most of the interesting stuff happens in the world. The more of them there are, the greater the quantity and variety of life becomes. We should be trying to increase the number of them in the world, not tear them down. </p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Film: Return of the Jedi gets a long and very scathing review indeed. It's poorly directed, kiddified, toyetic, pandering to the international market, inconsistent with the previous films, and the special effects look cheap and unfinished. And yet by the time the phantom menace comes out even this'll be held up as a masterpiece by comparison. Just goes to show, Star Wars has never been a critical darling despite it's massive commercial success, and people claiming otherwise have had their perspective skewed by nostalgia. What looks awesome when you're a little kid often doesn't hold up to closer examination, and so it has ever been. </p><p></p><p>War Games is a story of a teenager hacking into the government's computers with embarrassing ease, and then having to deal with the consequences. The reviewer thinks that's implausible, which now seems very dated indeed with the rise of the internet, and multiple high profile IT <img src="data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7" class="smilie smilie--sprite smilie--sprite1" alt=":)" title="Smile :)" loading="lazy" data-shortname=":)" /><img src="data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7" class="smilie smilie--sprite smilie--sprite1" alt=":)" title="Smile :)" loading="lazy" data-shortname=":)" /><img src="data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7" class="smilie smilie--sprite smilie--sprite1" alt=":)" title="Smile :)" loading="lazy" data-shortname=":)" /><img src="data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7" class="smilie smilie--sprite smilie--sprite1" alt=":)" title="Smile :)" loading="lazy" data-shortname=":)" />ups by big companies and governments. They're funded by people who know nothing about computers, and the people running they day-to-day side are frequently overworked, underresourced and trying to juggle contradictory bureaucratic imperatives on equipment of various ages that requires jury-rigs to keep running and communicating with each other. It's more surprising that we don't see more of these stories, and I suspect that's because they happen, but the people responsible are never discovered or caught. </p><p></p><p>Psycho 2 gets a surprisingly strong review. It deliberately subverts our expectations from the first one, and the set, soundtrack and cinematographic work is easily up to the standard of the original. Now there's an opinion many reviews in hindsight don't share. Funny how that happens. </p><p></p><p>The Hunger gets a short and negative review, good looking but dull. Without a substantial story, cool visuals are ultimately an empty experience. Yup, heard that one before. Trying to make a full length theatrical movie out of a fairytale takes a lot of padding, and many adaptors aren't up to it. </p><p></p><p>Something Wicked This Way Comes also goes against the tide, giving it a positive reception while bemoaning it's poor commercial performance. It might not be the fastest or flashiest, but it sets a good creeping horror atmosphere, and the special effects and soundtrack work well to support that. Worth digging up and revisiting. </p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Lexicon: The media column is axed and replaced by this piece of meta analysis, talking about the new jargon and subgenres of sci-fi. It's one of their more conservative ones, mostly mocking things like turning verbs into nouns, dressing up menial job descriptions with fancy titles, and the general dearth of originality or artistic integrity in the movie industry in general. So not that different to before, but without any real education to go with the snark. That's a bit of a step down overall. We already know creative industries are cesspits filled with backstabbing sharks, but we don't know all the complex technical ways they accomplish their goals. Snark may be entertaining, but if you can educate and entertain at the same time, that's even better. I mildly disapprove of this change. </p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Games: Star Fleet Battles Expansion Module 2 gets a purely descriptive review that gives me no idea what he actually thinks about it. A ton of new crunch, and a fairly extensive amount of errata for the previous instalments. The kind of thing that's incredibly common in games of all kinds, and subject to definite diminishing returns. I guess that is pretty common, to the point where you might get bored and skim over it instead of developing a proper opinion. <img src="data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7" class="smilie smilie--sprite smilie--sprite2" alt=";)" title="Wink ;)" loading="lazy" data-shortname=";)" /> It would be oh so easy. </p><p></p><p>Striker is another spinoff game from the Traveller RPG setting. Where Invasion: Earth was large scale and highly specific in it's scenario, this is a more flexible squad level tactical wargame. It gets plenty of praise, as it's rules are clear and concise, yet not so simple as to lack tactical options, and it has plenty of room for expansion in new infantry and unit types, and so you can create new scenarios easily as well. Their willingness to branch out shows why Traveller became the biggest sci-fi RPG out there for quite a few years. </p><p></p><p>Moon Base Clavius, on the other hand, gets a sardonically vicious negative review. It's mostly a poor ripoff off a better game, the bits that are original are stupid, and the whole thing is wrapped up in a poorly edited, typo filled package. Why even bother if you're going to make a job this sloppy?</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Visitation: We warm up for this issue's theme with a bit of creepy fiction to set the mood. It's an interestingly meta one, positing a universe where the supernatural is shaped by human belief, so all the monsters and their strengths and weaknesses aren't truly real, but they're tailored to your fears and more than real enough to thoroughly mess you up if your subconscious wavers. We've seen that quite a few times, and will again in many RPG's in various permutations, showing it's a common idea. It's probably not quite what they really need to set the scene as it undercuts the whole idea of the supernatural, but it's still pretty well written, and I guess adaptive fears can remain scary in a way concrete ones can't once solved. All a matter of taste, really. </p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Nightmare House: The actual boardgame doesn't follow the metaphysics of the fiction, instead being a more traditional take on the gothic haunted house subgenre. Darkholm Manor was built on cursed ground, and each generation since then has added their own unpleasant touch to proceedings, racking up an increasing number of melodramatic ghosts trapped within it's walls until it became impossible for even the most hardened skeptic to live in and left abandoned and mouldering for decades. Choose from 12 investigators, each with their own strengths, weaknesses and reasons for coming to the house, and figure out how to break the curse. It's more psychological horror than slasher movie, as the house has limited energy to manifest supernatural occurrences, and needs to psychologically wear it's victims down before possessing them instead of going straight for a bloodbath. Similarly, the other players need to systematically exorcise the rooms in the house to weaken the entity before they can get rid of it for good, giving plenty of room for dramatic back and forth progression. The odds of success definitely increase if there are multiple players, and they pick characters with contrasting abilities to make a well rounded team. As usual with this magazine's games, the rules are fairly complex, with a lot of phases in each turn, some only relevant to certain characters, and require a mix of skill and luck that'll take a few tries to figure out good tactics. If you only play it once a year on halloween you'll probably never master it. Oh well, at least that keeps it open to new players. </p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Books: Millennium by John Varley gets a review that's overall positive, but also pours water on previous, even more rapturous reviews in other publications. Yes, it's both competently written and has a good story, but it's hardly original. That's the thing when you manage to appeal to a younger or wider readerbase than normal. They're not as cynical as hardcore consumers, so they're more impressed by clever tricks. Plus in a pre-internet age, it was harder to check if someone else has already had the same idea. Things wouldn't play out in the same way today. </p><p></p><p>Lyonesse by Jack Vance gets a review that's positive overall, but also points out that his writing style isn't for everyone. it's not quite style over substance, but the floridity does make for challenging reading. Stick with it, expand your vocabulary, it'll be worth it. </p><p></p><p>The Prisoner of Zhamanak by L. Sprague de Camp also gets plenty of praise. His tales of weird and wonderful alien worlds consistently manage to come up with new twists to entertain readers. No argument with that. </p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Haunted Places: The second tie-in to our big game this time isn't a behind the scenes debriefing, but a short introduction to the tropes of the horror genre. It's written from the perspective of introducing sci-fi fans who are completely ignorant of the other genre, which means it definitely feels pretty shallow and redundant to me, especially after the very self-aware fiction, saying nothing I didn't know already. Really, how many people are that blinkered and specific in their reading and tv watching choices? Who doesn't know what haunted houses, ghosts, serial killers or vampires are? I really don't see much point in this article for any but their youngest readers. </p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Into the Void pt 1: Our second bit of fiction this month eschews the horror and philosophy for some fast paced sci-fi action. A racially diverse and snarky space crew have to fend off an alien attack. Their ship gets damaged, and they survive through ingenuity rather than raw power, using their remaining options in a way the enemy wouldn't expect. It feels very much like a group of PC's, as they mostly treat each other as equals despite the theoretical chain of command, and the banter is pretty engaging. So this works pretty well as an example of actual play, and I wouldn't be surprised if it was based off one. I suppose if they're going to be a gaming magazine, they want to lead by example. </p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Into the Void pt 2: Following directly on from the fiction is a 6 page module for Star Frontiers, using the characters there as pregens. Unlike most modules of this era, this is a complete railroad rather than a sandbox, with the encounters presented in exactly the order they appeared in the fiction, and the players expected to choose the same solutions if they want to progress. That's not the kind of writing I'm very pleased to see. Looking at the writer's resume, it looks like he was one of the guys responsible for the first wave of Dragonlance modules, which also pushed linear stories rather than letting players loose on the setting to make their own. So it looks like this is one of the first signs of the second wave of adventure design, where frustrated novelists replace wargamers, and as sole writer on both fiction and module, it was his own idea. He definitely deserves some of the blame for the next few years then. I have no interest in playing or running that kind of railroading crap, and I doubt I ever will, so I definitely disapprove of this one. Let players create their own solutions, don't expect them to read the designer's mind to do things the One True Way. </p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Ringshipper: Another sign of TSR's style taking over is the start of a regular comic series, a bit of sci-fi action which looks like it's about space traders and raiders fighting over the artefacts of a lost civilisation. It's only a single page, so not a lot has time to happen, and since we've only got a few issues to go, I suspect this won't be resolved, just like Jasmine, Pinsom, Wormy, and most of their other comics with continuity from this era. Serialised fiction in monthly publications is hard to sustain, especially in comic format, where a single busy day can take over a year to write and draw, and so it's saddening but not surprising it's filled with false starts that wind up going nowhere.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Feedback Questions: The feedback section loses it's most interesting part, the pitches for new games. That's definitely not a good sign, and reminds us TSR's lack of interest in audience feedback was one of the reasons for their downfall a decade later. Have they already decided the magazine's days are numbered, or is that still up in the air for a few months yet? In either case, this is a pretty unwelcome change. All those cool game ideas, shelved and sat on indefinitely because someone at TSR thought they probably wouldn't be profitable without asking their audience if they wanted them. I suppose this is the great thing about Kickstarter and it's ilk. Anyone can get an idea out to the public, and if it's good enough, they can make it in the right quantities, no worry about over or under production and dealing with storing lots of unsold stock for years. That's a definite improvement over the old days. </p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>In sharp contrast with last issue, this one brings the negative aspects of TSR's management compared to SPI's into focus. Dumbing down for a wider audience, railroading, and lack of interest in listening to feedback are all things I've been annoyed about in the past, and getting all three in quick succession does not amuse, even if there are still plenty of good articles in here as well. Such is the nature of change, giving with one hand but taking with the other. Let's see where next issue falls in the overall balance of things.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="(un)reason, post: 7556774, member: 27780"] [B][U]Ares 15 - Nightmare House: Fall 1983[/U][/B] 68 pages. Huh. So even Ares gets a Halloween themed issue, such is it's popularity. Does horror count as sci-fi or fantasy, or as in novels, it's own genre due to the different audience? Oh well, at least it keeps the variety up for me. And I do remember enjoying the October issues of Dragon more than average. Let's see if that's true here as well, or it'll scare me in the bad way. Ares Log: This isn't saying anything new, just reiterating that this is now the Sci-fi counterpart to Dragon. If you like both, buy both! Gotta collect 'em all! And since TSR is primarily an RPG company by this point, with plenty of sci-fi games, they're going to be appearing a lot more in here in the future. Yeah, nothing surprising about that at all. Not worth commenting on more. Matters of Fact: Science for Science Fiction is rebranded and expanded now it's counterpart is gone, with a new writer, and a very cramped four column per page formatting. The individual topics are just as shallowly covered as before though, apart from the last one about 2010, the sequel to 2001, which gets an extensive sidebar about the gaming implications of von neuman machines, (do spawn cascading undead count?) and stats for several of them in the Star Frontiers system. Also pretty interesting is a study on the vast variety of micro ecosystems created by human gardens, where each one in a road can differ dramatically, and thus there's far more ecological niches than would occur naturally in a space that size. This relates closely to another piece on fractal geometry, and how area to volume ratios of a place can change dramatically depending on the precision of your measuring tool. Some utopians think the world would be better with no borders, but in reality, borders are where most of the interesting stuff happens in the world. The more of them there are, the greater the quantity and variety of life becomes. We should be trying to increase the number of them in the world, not tear them down. Film: Return of the Jedi gets a long and very scathing review indeed. It's poorly directed, kiddified, toyetic, pandering to the international market, inconsistent with the previous films, and the special effects look cheap and unfinished. And yet by the time the phantom menace comes out even this'll be held up as a masterpiece by comparison. Just goes to show, Star Wars has never been a critical darling despite it's massive commercial success, and people claiming otherwise have had their perspective skewed by nostalgia. What looks awesome when you're a little kid often doesn't hold up to closer examination, and so it has ever been. War Games is a story of a teenager hacking into the government's computers with embarrassing ease, and then having to deal with the consequences. The reviewer thinks that's implausible, which now seems very dated indeed with the rise of the internet, and multiple high profile IT :):):):)ups by big companies and governments. They're funded by people who know nothing about computers, and the people running they day-to-day side are frequently overworked, underresourced and trying to juggle contradictory bureaucratic imperatives on equipment of various ages that requires jury-rigs to keep running and communicating with each other. It's more surprising that we don't see more of these stories, and I suspect that's because they happen, but the people responsible are never discovered or caught. Psycho 2 gets a surprisingly strong review. It deliberately subverts our expectations from the first one, and the set, soundtrack and cinematographic work is easily up to the standard of the original. Now there's an opinion many reviews in hindsight don't share. Funny how that happens. The Hunger gets a short and negative review, good looking but dull. Without a substantial story, cool visuals are ultimately an empty experience. Yup, heard that one before. Trying to make a full length theatrical movie out of a fairytale takes a lot of padding, and many adaptors aren't up to it. Something Wicked This Way Comes also goes against the tide, giving it a positive reception while bemoaning it's poor commercial performance. It might not be the fastest or flashiest, but it sets a good creeping horror atmosphere, and the special effects and soundtrack work well to support that. Worth digging up and revisiting. Lexicon: The media column is axed and replaced by this piece of meta analysis, talking about the new jargon and subgenres of sci-fi. It's one of their more conservative ones, mostly mocking things like turning verbs into nouns, dressing up menial job descriptions with fancy titles, and the general dearth of originality or artistic integrity in the movie industry in general. So not that different to before, but without any real education to go with the snark. That's a bit of a step down overall. We already know creative industries are cesspits filled with backstabbing sharks, but we don't know all the complex technical ways they accomplish their goals. Snark may be entertaining, but if you can educate and entertain at the same time, that's even better. I mildly disapprove of this change. Games: Star Fleet Battles Expansion Module 2 gets a purely descriptive review that gives me no idea what he actually thinks about it. A ton of new crunch, and a fairly extensive amount of errata for the previous instalments. The kind of thing that's incredibly common in games of all kinds, and subject to definite diminishing returns. I guess that is pretty common, to the point where you might get bored and skim over it instead of developing a proper opinion. ;) It would be oh so easy. Striker is another spinoff game from the Traveller RPG setting. Where Invasion: Earth was large scale and highly specific in it's scenario, this is a more flexible squad level tactical wargame. It gets plenty of praise, as it's rules are clear and concise, yet not so simple as to lack tactical options, and it has plenty of room for expansion in new infantry and unit types, and so you can create new scenarios easily as well. Their willingness to branch out shows why Traveller became the biggest sci-fi RPG out there for quite a few years. Moon Base Clavius, on the other hand, gets a sardonically vicious negative review. It's mostly a poor ripoff off a better game, the bits that are original are stupid, and the whole thing is wrapped up in a poorly edited, typo filled package. Why even bother if you're going to make a job this sloppy? Visitation: We warm up for this issue's theme with a bit of creepy fiction to set the mood. It's an interestingly meta one, positing a universe where the supernatural is shaped by human belief, so all the monsters and their strengths and weaknesses aren't truly real, but they're tailored to your fears and more than real enough to thoroughly mess you up if your subconscious wavers. We've seen that quite a few times, and will again in many RPG's in various permutations, showing it's a common idea. It's probably not quite what they really need to set the scene as it undercuts the whole idea of the supernatural, but it's still pretty well written, and I guess adaptive fears can remain scary in a way concrete ones can't once solved. All a matter of taste, really. Nightmare House: The actual boardgame doesn't follow the metaphysics of the fiction, instead being a more traditional take on the gothic haunted house subgenre. Darkholm Manor was built on cursed ground, and each generation since then has added their own unpleasant touch to proceedings, racking up an increasing number of melodramatic ghosts trapped within it's walls until it became impossible for even the most hardened skeptic to live in and left abandoned and mouldering for decades. Choose from 12 investigators, each with their own strengths, weaknesses and reasons for coming to the house, and figure out how to break the curse. It's more psychological horror than slasher movie, as the house has limited energy to manifest supernatural occurrences, and needs to psychologically wear it's victims down before possessing them instead of going straight for a bloodbath. Similarly, the other players need to systematically exorcise the rooms in the house to weaken the entity before they can get rid of it for good, giving plenty of room for dramatic back and forth progression. The odds of success definitely increase if there are multiple players, and they pick characters with contrasting abilities to make a well rounded team. As usual with this magazine's games, the rules are fairly complex, with a lot of phases in each turn, some only relevant to certain characters, and require a mix of skill and luck that'll take a few tries to figure out good tactics. If you only play it once a year on halloween you'll probably never master it. Oh well, at least that keeps it open to new players. Books: Millennium by John Varley gets a review that's overall positive, but also pours water on previous, even more rapturous reviews in other publications. Yes, it's both competently written and has a good story, but it's hardly original. That's the thing when you manage to appeal to a younger or wider readerbase than normal. They're not as cynical as hardcore consumers, so they're more impressed by clever tricks. Plus in a pre-internet age, it was harder to check if someone else has already had the same idea. Things wouldn't play out in the same way today. Lyonesse by Jack Vance gets a review that's positive overall, but also points out that his writing style isn't for everyone. it's not quite style over substance, but the floridity does make for challenging reading. Stick with it, expand your vocabulary, it'll be worth it. The Prisoner of Zhamanak by L. Sprague de Camp also gets plenty of praise. His tales of weird and wonderful alien worlds consistently manage to come up with new twists to entertain readers. No argument with that. Haunted Places: The second tie-in to our big game this time isn't a behind the scenes debriefing, but a short introduction to the tropes of the horror genre. It's written from the perspective of introducing sci-fi fans who are completely ignorant of the other genre, which means it definitely feels pretty shallow and redundant to me, especially after the very self-aware fiction, saying nothing I didn't know already. Really, how many people are that blinkered and specific in their reading and tv watching choices? Who doesn't know what haunted houses, ghosts, serial killers or vampires are? I really don't see much point in this article for any but their youngest readers. Into the Void pt 1: Our second bit of fiction this month eschews the horror and philosophy for some fast paced sci-fi action. A racially diverse and snarky space crew have to fend off an alien attack. Their ship gets damaged, and they survive through ingenuity rather than raw power, using their remaining options in a way the enemy wouldn't expect. It feels very much like a group of PC's, as they mostly treat each other as equals despite the theoretical chain of command, and the banter is pretty engaging. So this works pretty well as an example of actual play, and I wouldn't be surprised if it was based off one. I suppose if they're going to be a gaming magazine, they want to lead by example. Into the Void pt 2: Following directly on from the fiction is a 6 page module for Star Frontiers, using the characters there as pregens. Unlike most modules of this era, this is a complete railroad rather than a sandbox, with the encounters presented in exactly the order they appeared in the fiction, and the players expected to choose the same solutions if they want to progress. That's not the kind of writing I'm very pleased to see. Looking at the writer's resume, it looks like he was one of the guys responsible for the first wave of Dragonlance modules, which also pushed linear stories rather than letting players loose on the setting to make their own. So it looks like this is one of the first signs of the second wave of adventure design, where frustrated novelists replace wargamers, and as sole writer on both fiction and module, it was his own idea. He definitely deserves some of the blame for the next few years then. I have no interest in playing or running that kind of railroading crap, and I doubt I ever will, so I definitely disapprove of this one. Let players create their own solutions, don't expect them to read the designer's mind to do things the One True Way. Ringshipper: Another sign of TSR's style taking over is the start of a regular comic series, a bit of sci-fi action which looks like it's about space traders and raiders fighting over the artefacts of a lost civilisation. It's only a single page, so not a lot has time to happen, and since we've only got a few issues to go, I suspect this won't be resolved, just like Jasmine, Pinsom, Wormy, and most of their other comics with continuity from this era. Serialised fiction in monthly publications is hard to sustain, especially in comic format, where a single busy day can take over a year to write and draw, and so it's saddening but not surprising it's filled with false starts that wind up going nowhere. Feedback Questions: The feedback section loses it's most interesting part, the pitches for new games. That's definitely not a good sign, and reminds us TSR's lack of interest in audience feedback was one of the reasons for their downfall a decade later. Have they already decided the magazine's days are numbered, or is that still up in the air for a few months yet? In either case, this is a pretty unwelcome change. All those cool game ideas, shelved and sat on indefinitely because someone at TSR thought they probably wouldn't be profitable without asking their audience if they wanted them. I suppose this is the great thing about Kickstarter and it's ilk. Anyone can get an idea out to the public, and if it's good enough, they can make it in the right quantities, no worry about over or under production and dealing with storing lots of unsold stock for years. That's a definite improvement over the old days. In sharp contrast with last issue, this one brings the negative aspects of TSR's management compared to SPI's into focus. Dumbing down for a wider audience, railroading, and lack of interest in listening to feedback are all things I've been annoyed about in the past, and getting all three in quick succession does not amuse, even if there are still plenty of good articles in here as well. Such is the nature of change, giving with one hand but taking with the other. Let's see where next issue falls in the overall balance of things. [/QUOTE]
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