seamanq

Well-Known Member
Game Developer
Aug 28, 2018
1,896
2,874
I really think you all are missing the mark here lol. I believe the robotic way the MC talks is intentional, it's a way to show just how unsocialized he is compared to the other characters. I mean this person has been avoiding all social contact for years and years of course he doesn't speak like a normal person and the other characters have made fun of him for it at times. But as you mentioned it has been getting better in chapter 3.5 and I think that's also intentional to help show his growth as his friends help socialize him and make him more normal. Of course he talks like an overly poetic robot, he doesn't know any colloquialisms or vernacular because he hasn't been involved in society to learn them so talks like a person who knows English from reading lofty books and sad poetry lol.
Interesting theory, but not backed up with facts. He meets characters in the story that he went to high school with. I don't care what world you are in, but going to high school is very different from "avoiding all social contact" and it is ridiculous to assert that he doesn't know any colloquialisms or vernacular because he hasn't been involved in society for the same reasons.

The assertion by Mortarion that the broken English is a result of translating from original German content (Germlish?) makes more sense. This would suggest that better translating is probably a good idea, as what could be happening here is transliterating rather than actually translating, where content from the German is (more or less) being translated with the same structure and syntax of German without properly rendering it in a way that is readily consumable by native English speakers.

I stand by my original point. In all other respects, this is an outstanding VN, and especially from the visual aspects, one of the best I have ever seen. Getting either better translation or better editing would really help it over the hump and make it perhaps not "one of" but perhaps the best of the genre across the board.
 

Faptime

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Mar 25, 2018
1,743
3,958
I'm also someone who is wondering who the trans character is and if they are romanceable. I am on Bella's path, so maybe that's why I missed the trans revelation...

It seems *highly unlikely* that she's one of the girls playing basketball because those pants left nothing to the imagination.

Maybe Maja, Victoria's sister? Maybe Bella's Aunt? Can someone clue me in please?
 
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May 8, 2018
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I'm also someone who is wondering who the trans character is and if they are romanceable. I am on Bella's path, so maybe that's why I missed the trans revelation...

It seems *highly unlikely* that she's one of the girls playing basketball because those pants left nothing to the imagination.

Maybe Maja, Victoria's sister? Maybe Bella's Aunt? Can someone clue me in please?
It hasn't been revealed yet.

We only know 2 things

1 - It's a girl (that turns boy if you enable the trans option)

2 - The girl in question was only introduced in chapter 3.
 
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Faptime

Well-Known Member
Mar 25, 2018
1,743
3,958
It hasn't been revealed yet.

We only know 2 things

1 - It's a girl (that turns boy if you enable the trans option)

2 - The girl in question was only introduced in chapter 3.
So it's a trans girl (born male, identifies as female)? Cool. Looking forward to finding out who she is.

Nia is out because of her cam girl status. Her being trans would have definitely been commented on by Nami.

If it's Robin, Nancy, Sasha, or Zara they are indeed masters of tuckage.

My money is on Nancy simply because we haven't have as many pelfie shots of her yet.
 

visagedirect

Member
Feb 21, 2020
351
346
Words Can't describe how much I love this Game, the wow factor is off the scale, there are 3 games @ the moment (this is one them) that have RAISED THE BAR to a whole new level, Renders are amazing, the story is great and beautifully written, the music tracks set the atmosphere! the list just goes on ! WOW! it just has it all ! if i could give 6 Stars I would a drop of hat ! fantastic DEVS ! i cant say anymore !
 

LuckyLara

Newbie
Jan 13, 2021
80
159
Nami 4K Wallpaper by Lady Aspen

Holy F.... Thanks for the new wallpaper homie. and whoever made it, wow.

Truth be told, i actually love the new improved versions of 1st chapter and everything, like its actallly day and night difference, and its pretty worth waiting renders for so long. u can really enjoy much more in story, and i cant wait for new WIAB.

Thank you Oceanlab
 
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Sep 4, 2019
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Disclaimer: I'm not a Dev and know little about game development, but have been a Patreon supporter since January of this year.

I just want to get on the soapbox for a second. I love this game, I love the renders, the story telling, everything. My biggest concern is how long it is going to take to develop, especially since Ocean is making 2 games at once. It's been 7 months between Chapter 3 and 3.5 while I loved 3.5, I have to admit I was a bit sad at the lack of real Lewd scenes. Especially since it was an entire year between Chapter 2 and 3.

The last Patreon goal was to get a 3090, I believe he has now has one for each game. Back then he emphasized this would speed up development time and render time, and while I am sure that it has, I fear that scope creep is going to be a problem. For example, going back and re-doing the renders from Chapter 1. The new ones look great, but what's going to happen in 3 years when all of a sudden the current renders look dated? Are we going to have this rehashing of old chapters and perfectionism that slows down Development time?

I want to ask of Ocean - what is the biggest time sink for development? For example, the animations are stunning. Beautiful. But if cutting down on the number of animations would speed up Development time by even 20% it could save a ton of time in the long run. I am torn about this - on one hand we have the most stunning animations I have ever seen in a VN. On the other, I would much rather have more story, more fleshed out relationships (we really only have a lot of time with the 2 main LI's). There are so many girls in the game and it is going to take literally years to have fleshed out stories with all of them. Frankly, it is going to take a decade to finish this game at the current rate. While I don't mind supporting Ocean for 2-3 years, I can't stretch it beyond that.

A good part of project management is setting a goal and sticking to timeframes, even if newer, shinier games or technology come along. From his Patreon posts he wants to get one of the Nvidia Quadro professional cards. Of course I understand why, but my fear is that instead of cutting down on Dev time, it's going to cause more scope creep and renders/animations that are more complex and ultimately don't save time due to the increased complexities.

Maybe the answer is to get a partner to help out..I don't know. Ocean is a one man army and it's truly commendable. Time vs. quality is always going to be a challenge but I just worry the Patron support will start slowing down with the releases being so far apart.
 

endriux

Member
May 5, 2018
243
273
Wait, aren't those tags a bit misleading? Futa/ trans? groping? domination? Ii's been 3rd episode and not a single lewd or adult content...

Btw - how many episodes are there going to be? 5? 6? 7? It looks like at least 2 more. So if the first came out in 2019, now is 2021 and it's 3rd... does it mean at least two years until finished product??
10582752-3x2-940x627.png
 

Dragon59

Conversation Conqueror
Apr 24, 2020
6,699
10,960
Ummmm .... I hate to bring this up as I am enjoying the game so much, but it's "martial arts studio", not "martarial arts studio". May I respectfully suggest either spell check or a proofreader, as it detracts from the otherwise incredible visuals of the game? I would definitely suggest either a proofreader or professional writer before you go "big time" as the amazing visuals, which surpass 95% of what I have seen would definitely suggest that you are going in that direction, if not doing demos for a professional career in the animation field.
Though a "marital arts studio" would be interesting as well. I remember when I was younger, there was a store selling sex toys, porn, lingerie and such that referred to themselves as a "marital arts store." This was a time when places often stressed that what they sold was for helping married couples and nothing sordid for unmarried people to keep the modern Puritans at bay.
 
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dwalsh

Well-Known Member
Jul 1, 2019
1,649
856
I really think you all are missing the mark here lol. I believe the robotic way the MC talks is intentional
I agree but would also add that it's not like he antisocial by force but chooses to be so. Almost like a Joker and Deadpool forth wall perspective watching how much energy people use being social when it's not necessary. He to me understands how people think (basketball game) but has no desire to be drawn into useless social activities and interactions just to fit in. It's kinda a scientist studying ants knowing alot about their behaviour and what triggers certain responses. In his case he is like a "scientist ant" watching the other ants knowing they are locked into this invisible prison of their colony. They can't leave the trail or they'll be lost but unlike the rest his tether is not as strong to the colony and he can alter the trail.
 

Soundgfx

Member
May 4, 2020
408
879
Same model as in 'Summer of Love' and 'TP: The Class Next door': Sinisa HD
Ohhhh that's interesting how this model isn't used by a lot of people, so far I've only seen her being used in two decent games not including summer's gone.


I think that is a cultural/language thing. For me, as a fellow german, are the most conversations perfectly to understand. In my opinion - just my - it has something to do how the german language is structured. I asume heavyly that the story is written in german and translated after into englisch. And this could be the problem.

In German, there are so many ways to write and embellish a text and describe things that are simply not possible in English. (To be clear, that is no englisch bashing, and i have no intention to insult someone in any way)

The best example seems to be the good old "the". In English one word for everything, in German we have three words for it:

derrelative pronoun masculinethe
dierelative pronoun femininethe
dasrelative pronoun objectivethe

That's the way it is in the whole german language. It should be clear that extremely convoluted texts may then be easier for a German speaker to understand, or that he simply thinks nothing of it because our texts are always structured in this way - while a native English speaker will certainly pull his hair out when reading the translations.

And i'm sure that for a native speaker my post is a perfect example of what I just wanted to explain. :ROFLMAO:
Yes I definitely thought it was a German thing, I too assumed that if dialogue was in german would be a lot more free flowing but when compiled and translated for the universal English it would have problems.


But it isn't too bad, it's just jarring sometimes.

Interesting theory, but not backed up with facts. He meets characters in the story that he went to high school with. I don't care what world you are in, but going to high school is very different from "avoiding all social contact" and it is ridiculous to assert that he doesn't know any colloquialisms or vernacular because he hasn't been involved in society for the same reasons.
The "protagonist speaks that way because it is intentional" seem like a flimsy excuse, there's no way inefficient speech patterns are intentional. Humans are naturally good at finding shortcuts, that applies even to spoken language so logically it wouldn't make sense. The protagonist isn't yoda lmao
The assertion by Mortarion that the broken English is a result of translating from original German content (Germlish?) makes more sense. This would suggest that better translating is probably a good idea, as what could be happening here is transliterating rather than actually translating, where content from the German is (more or less) being translated with the same structure and syntax of German without properly rendering it in a way that is readily consumable by native English speakers.
Yes that is what I think it is as well.
I stand by my original point. In all other respects, this is an outstanding VN, and especially from the visual aspects, one of the best I have ever seen. Getting either better translation or better editing would really help it over the hump and make it perhaps not "one of" but perhaps the best of the genre across the board.
Ocean makes use of amazing lighting comparable to City of Broken Dreamers, while CoBD nails the neon lights look of its cyberpunk setting summer's gone simply rocks at natural lighting - at least sometimes, the school feel like it doesn't share the same light as the lighting that makes the characters look like they have an Instagram filter. - but hey, we've all seen this school building asset too many times, no use trying to make it pretty lmao
 
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underoath27

Well-Known Member
Nov 22, 2020
1,549
1,262
Damn! That was really nice! I'm not sure if I can choose just one girl: I really like Nami, and she is with MC for so long. Mila is gorgeous and sweet, and we have Bella, damn! They are my favorite ones, even I played it "chasing" Bella's path, every time Nami or Mila is on the screen... Argh! Too difficult to chose one, hahaha! Let's see what next updates will show :)
 

lonelyk

Member
Feb 12, 2019
231
1,021
Disclaimer: I'm not a Dev and know little about game development, but have been a Patreon supporter since January of this year.

I just want to get on the soapbox for a second. I love this game, I love the renders, the story telling, everything. My biggest concern is how long it is going to take to develop, especially since Ocean is making 2 games at once. It's been 7 months between Chapter 3 and 3.5 while I loved 3.5, I have to admit I was a bit sad at the lack of real Lewd scenes. Especially since it was an entire year between Chapter 2 and 3.

The last Patreon goal was to get a 3090, I believe he has now has one for each game. Back then he emphasized this would speed up development time and render time, and while I am sure that it has, I fear that scope creep is going to be a problem. For example, going back and re-doing the renders from Chapter 1. The new ones look great, but what's going to happen in 3 years when all of a sudden the current renders look dated? Are we going to have this rehashing of old chapters and perfectionism that slows down Development time?

I want to ask of Ocean - what is the biggest time sink for development? For example, the animations are stunning. Beautiful. But if cutting down on the number of animations would speed up Development time by even 20% it could save a ton of time in the long run. I am torn about this - on one hand we have the most stunning animations I have ever seen in a VN. On the other, I would much rather have more story, more fleshed out relationships (we really only have a lot of time with the 2 main LI's). There are so many girls in the game and it is going to take literally years to have fleshed out stories with all of them. Frankly, it is going to take a decade to finish this game at the current rate. While I don't mind supporting Ocean for 2-3 years, I can't stretch it beyond that.

A good part of project management is setting a goal and sticking to timeframes, even if newer, shinier games or technology come along. From his Patreon posts he wants to get one of the Nvidia Quadro professional cards. Of course I understand why, but my fear is that instead of cutting down on Dev time, it's going to cause more scope creep and renders/animations that are more complex and ultimately don't save time due to the increased complexities.

Maybe the answer is to get a partner to help out..I don't know. Ocean is a one man army and it's truly commendable. Time vs. quality is always going to be a challenge but I just worry the Patron support will start slowing down with the releases being so far apart.
I completely agree. I'll just copy/paste my post from today on WIAB's thread, as it applies to both games:

I've recently played WIAB for the first time. It clearly isn't of the same caliber as Summer's Gone before the rework, and even the writing is less catchy than SG. But I liked it nonetheless, Leia, Katie and Dana are great girlfriend material and I'd be very happy to see more of them.

The problem is that even SG, the game that is updated the most frequently and could be called the "main game" at this point, will never get finished at this rate. 2.5 chapters released in the 2.25 years since the release of the first chapter of SG. And no update to WIAB for more than a year (and chapter 7 a very long way off). Target: 30 chapters each. So we are currently set for the completion of SG in 2046. The pace of delivery is way too slow for its ambitious scope. 1 full chapter every 3 months would already take almost 7 more years to finish the game, which is extremely long (too long) for a videogame development, and currently we are on a quarter of that pace, so well below that. And I'm not even going to do any calculation for WIAB.

And how many quality upgrades from technology (like Daz) will there be in 7 years prompting the rework of the previous chapters? A serious amount. There is a reason videogame projects are 3-5 years long at the most: they get outdated while in development (among other concerns).

I would expect measures to be taken to make it a more realistic project but so far I have the impression the problem is not seriously acknowledged. Some things could be done though. Either to increase the delivery output, or to lower the targeted scope. Pack SG/WIAB in 20 chapters instead of 30 and the finish line gets a lot closer. Hire another artist immediately and you can practically double the pace. But I wouldn't hold my breath about that, I've seen other artists in the same situation have impossible expectations of other artists that they should be able to have the exact same style as they have, so they never hire anyone. Also I believe Ocean plans on waiting until the switch to Blender after the first season (aka episode 10), so that is still in 6.5 years at the current pace, as if this is not an urgent thing to do. :)

Even with the optimistic outcome of those two measures, SG (the more frequently updated game) would be finished for Christmas 2029 if we take into account the current speed of development. So they're not enough.
I do think Ocean should put WIAB on hold. We're going through a 6-chapter rework, and apparently we are only going to see the first chapter rework after more than a year of waiting. There is just too much to catch up on before we see new content, and while WIAB is a very enjoyable game (and I would especially miss Leia), I find SG is superior. And whatever you think, everybody loses if no game gets completed. So put it on hold and use the second machine to produce animations (or other renders in parallel) for SG, speeding up the development some more.
Then maybe the quality target could be lowered a little. Maybe we can decrease a bit the amount and/or length of the animations as they take a long time to produce. But most importantly, being a perfectionist is the death of any such project. And for crying out loud, stop the reworks of earlier chapters until you have completed the game else in a couple of years there will be more things that will need a rework, and it slows everything down to a halt.

So some things that could be done to give us more frequent updates and finish SG in a reasonable amount of time, then pick up WIAB with a much better update pace. Releasing frequent updates will also certainly mean a greater interest from the audience and a much larger number of paying supporters, which on top of being worth it for Ocean would allow him to upgrade his hardware further and potentially hiring more help. It is the only viable way forward I can see, but it needs acknowledgement, and actions. If we continue contently like this, those games will become a meme of never getting completed and will eventually die out well before their planned end. And that would be a shame because they have unrivaled potential.


PS: I've been holding back this post for weeks as I did not want to risk offending Ocean. He is a great artist and I respect his work. But I had to say what's on my mind out of concern for the future of his games, I believe we're headed steadily to the wall and it urgently needs a course correction.
 

dwalsh

Well-Known Member
Jul 1, 2019
1,649
856
I completely agree. I'll just copy/paste my post from today on WIAB's thread, as it applies to both games:

I've recently played WIAB for the first time. It clearly isn't of the same caliber as Summer's Gone before the rework, and even the writing is less catchy than SG. But I liked it nonetheless, Leia, Katie and Dana are great girlfriend material and I'd be very happy to see more of them.

The problem is that even SG, the game that is updated the most frequently and could be called the "main game" at this point, will never get finished at this rate. 2.5 chapters released in the 2.25 years since the release of the first chapter of SG. And no update to WIAB for more than a year (and chapter 7 a very long way off). Target: 30 chapters each. So we are currently set for the completion of SG in 2046. The pace of delivery is way too slow for its ambitious scope. 1 full chapter every 3 months would already take almost 7 more years to finish the game, which is extremely long (too long) for a videogame development, and currently we are on a quarter of that pace, so well below that. And I'm not even going to do any calculation for WIAB.

And how many quality upgrades from technology (like Daz) will there be in 7 years prompting the rework of the previous chapters? A serious amount. There is a reason videogame projects are 3-5 years long at the most: they get outdated while in development (among other concerns).

I would expect measures to be taken to make it a more realistic project but so far I have the impression the problem is not seriously acknowledged. Some things could be done though. Either to increase the delivery output, or to lower the targeted scope. Pack SG/WIAB in 20 chapters instead of 30 and the finish line gets a lot closer. Hire another artist immediately and you can practically double the pace. But I wouldn't hold my breath about that, I've seen other artists in the same situation have impossible expectations of other artists that they should be able to have the exact same style as they have, so they never hire anyone. Also I believe Ocean plans on waiting until the switch to Blender after the first season (aka episode 10), so that is still in 6.5 years at the current pace, as if this is not an urgent thing to do. :)

Even with the optimistic outcome of those two measures, SG (the more frequently updated game) would be finished for Christmas 2029 if we take into account the current speed of development. So they're not enough.
I do think Ocean should put WIAB on hold. We're going through a 6-chapter rework, and apparently we are only going to see the first chapter rework after more than a year of waiting. There is just too much to catch up on before we see new content, and while WIAB is a very enjoyable game (and I would especially miss Leia), I find SG is superior. And whatever you think, everybody loses if no game gets completed. So put it on hold and use the second machine to produce animations (or other renders in parallel) for SG, speeding up the development some more.
Then maybe the quality target could be lowered a little. Maybe we can decrease a bit the amount and/or length of the animations as they take a long time to produce. But most importantly, being a perfectionist is the death of any such project. And for crying out loud, stop the reworks of earlier chapters until you have completed the game else in a couple of years there will be more things that will need a rework, and it slows everything down to a halt.

So some things that could be done to give us more frequent updates and finish SG in a reasonable amount of time, then pick up WIAB with a much better update pace. Releasing frequent updates will also certainly mean a greater interest from the audience and a much larger number of paying supporters, which on top of being worth it for Ocean would allow him to upgrade his hardware further and potentially hiring more help. It is the only viable way forward I can see, but it needs acknowledgement, and actions. If we continue contently like this, those games will become a meme of never getting completed and will eventually die out well before their planned end. And that would be a shame because they have unrivaled potential.


PS: I've been holding back this post for weeks as I did not want to risk offending Ocean. He is a great artist and I respect his work. But I had to say what's on my mind out of concern for the future of his games, I believe we're headed steadily to the wall and it urgently needs a course correction.
The truth is seldom a sweet pill to swallow. I myself worry about him getting stuck in a continuous cycle of reworking previous versions. I agree finishing the vn and then doing a rework of the final version if he wants (if that's what you meant) makes more sense. Hope he gets to read your comment and see the merits in it. He is definitely a talented person and arguably may have the best/one of the best VN's ever on his hands but it has to be finished first.
 
Feb 1, 2020
33
162
I completely agree. I'll just copy/paste my post from today on WIAB's thread, as it applies to both games:

I've recently played WIAB for the first time. It clearly isn't of the same caliber as Summer's Gone before the rework, and even the writing is less catchy than SG. But I liked it nonetheless, Leia, Katie and Dana are great girlfriend material and I'd be very happy to see more of them.

The problem is that even SG, the game that is updated the most frequently and could be called the "main game" at this point, will never get finished at this rate. 2.5 chapters released in the 2.25 years since the release of the first chapter of SG. And no update to WIAB for more than a year (and chapter 7 a very long way off). Target: 30 chapters each. So we are currently set for the completion of SG in 2046. The pace of delivery is way too slow for its ambitious scope. 1 full chapter every 3 months would already take almost 7 more years to finish the game, which is extremely long (too long) for a videogame development, and currently we are on a quarter of that pace, so well below that. And I'm not even going to do any calculation for WIAB.

And how many quality upgrades from technology (like Daz) will there be in 7 years prompting the rework of the previous chapters? A serious amount. There is a reason videogame projects are 3-5 years long at the most: they get outdated while in development (among other concerns).

I would expect measures to be taken to make it a more realistic project but so far I have the impression the problem is not seriously acknowledged. Some things could be done though. Either to increase the delivery output, or to lower the targeted scope. Pack SG/WIAB in 20 chapters instead of 30 and the finish line gets a lot closer. Hire another artist immediately and you can practically double the pace. But I wouldn't hold my breath about that, I've seen other artists in the same situation have impossible expectations of other artists that they should be able to have the exact same style as they have, so they never hire anyone. Also I believe Ocean plans on waiting until the switch to Blender after the first season (aka episode 10), so that is still in 6.5 years at the current pace, as if this is not an urgent thing to do. :)

Even with the optimistic outcome of those two measures, SG (the more frequently updated game) would be finished for Christmas 2029 if we take into account the current speed of development. So they're not enough.
I do think Ocean should put WIAB on hold. We're going through a 6-chapter rework, and apparently we are only going to see the first chapter rework after more than a year of waiting. There is just too much to catch up on before we see new content, and while WIAB is a very enjoyable game (and I would especially miss Leia), I find SG is superior. And whatever you think, everybody loses if no game gets completed. So put it on hold and use the second machine to produce animations (or other renders in parallel) for SG, speeding up the development some more.
Then maybe the quality target could be lowered a little. Maybe we can decrease a bit the amount and/or length of the animations as they take a long time to produce. But most importantly, being a perfectionist is the death of any such project. And for crying out loud, stop the reworks of earlier chapters until you have completed the game else in a couple of years there will be more things that will need a rework, and it slows everything down to a halt.

So some things that could be done to give us more frequent updates and finish SG in a reasonable amount of time, then pick up WIAB with a much better update pace. Releasing frequent updates will also certainly mean a greater interest from the audience and a much larger number of paying supporters, which on top of being worth it for Ocean would allow him to upgrade his hardware further and potentially hiring more help. It is the only viable way forward I can see, but it needs acknowledgement, and actions. If we continue contently like this, those games will become a meme of never getting completed and will eventually die out well before their planned end. And that would be a shame because they have unrivaled potential.


PS: I've been holding back this post for weeks as I did not want to risk offending Ocean. He is a great artist and I respect his work. But I had to say what's on my mind out of concern for the future of his games, I believe we're headed steadily to the wall and it urgently needs a course correction.
The problem with putting WiAB on hold is that rendering WiAB helps Ocean not to get burnt out as in the case of SG Ch3, he's stated several times that he had been pretty fucked up after completing that chapter. And working on both games simultaneously is one of the countermeasures for him not to end up like this again. So I don't think this will do :(

As for the reworking, while I don't support it either (though Chapter 1 really does need a visual rework, especially the first day at the college; however I don't really mind it the way it is and was) given current situation, I kinda get it if Ocean aims for Steam release with Chapter 5 or 4.5 I think (please correct me if I'm wrong).
If he let the first chapter in its original form, I can imagine it might not look very well to potential customers which would be new to the game. You know, based on the captivating main menu and visually spectacular intro, the customer who bought the game expects top quality he has never seen in games like this before, and then MC wakes up and suddenly boom!
Render downgrade by many levels.
 
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