Lessons from Witcher 3

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Set backgrounds do very much go against the whole free character choice. The goal of CP77 seemed to me based on what I've read, that you can make any sort of character you want that fits in the world. Alley thugs, street hookers, budding celebrity, whatever.

What might be good is to look at Mount and Blade rather than Dragon Age, where their character creation is very RPG-ish in how you outline your own background. Choose things such as sex, social standing, events in your past, and motivations.

If we're to have a Background mechanic, I'd want it to be very free. Instead of picking x, y, or z, you pick from a myriad of different elements to piece together your own background for your own personal character, which can effect where the game starts you off by default. Then having a selection screen where you can tweak all these default values (With an option to skip the RPG-Story-fluff-ness to go straight to that screen, which many would appreciate I imagine.)

Yeah that works too.

If they can't take inspirations from DAO just use M&B.
 
I disagree @Sirenapples.
As I said elsewhere I think CDPR has a real opportunity with the Lifepath portion of the CP character generation system.
Make every (or at least the majority of) the Lifepath events have some at least small relevance to CP2077. Allow the player to select (or randomly generate) Lifepath events. Those that want total freedom or don't give a damn about role-play can just ignore the entire thing. Those that do enjoy role-play can use it and see at least some game events affected by their character background.
Best of both worlds!

This will also do wonders for replay-ability as you can't experience everything the game offers in one play through.
 
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I understand where you guys are coming from. You want a life path chocie that has an impact on the game but is decided by the player. The more choices you have the more you can customize the character, but if you have fewer choices, like the Origin stories in DAO then you have to choose from one of a few "presets" rather than making your own.

In my opinion it is better to go the Dragon Age route because even if they are "presets" the game responds to your background choice, for example Lelliana might bring up the fact that you were raised in an elven alienage, or Morrigan might bring up the fact you were raised in the tower of magi. The main reason is that the programmers cannot possilby program a response to 200 possible choices, but they can with 10.

This is why I go with the Origins style, becuase the immersion offered by the game responding to these choices outweighs the benefits of being able to customize your character with umpteen million choices to allow you customize your character's back story when, in the end, the game will basically ignore alll of them.

It would basically be like writing your biography in a text field, the game won't care if you wrote down that your character burned a village to the ground or saved it. And the more chocies you add, the closer it gets to the point where none of them matter until finally it gets to the point where you might as well be writing them in a text field. Again, the main reason is that the programmers cannot possilby program a response to 200 possible choices, but they can with 10.

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I disagree @Sirenapples .
. . . as you can't experience everything the game offers in one play through.

This is why I do not like Bethesda games much. They are good, sometimes very good, but the fact that you can easily do everything in one playthrough does hamper the game somewhat, or in the case of Fallout 4 in particular, a lot.
 
I'd really prefer they'd put all the effort and resources that goes into creating those "10" scenes into rippling out reactivity throughout the game. Scripting those kinds of dialog choices, some more for flavor of character experssion and other much more mechanically inclined, should be easier than creating those 10 separate scenes on top of which there's the in game reactivity from them.

It really is not far from the "origin stories" when it comes to in-game reactivity, but it poses far larger scope of possibilities (for not being tied to anything specific, for the nuances that come from Lifepath choices on how dramatic or undramatic it is); and it has an additional bonus in that it doesn't require the PC have some sort of forced emotional trauma in his past that would warrant an "origin story" -- because hey, there's no point in creating a separate opening sequences that don't have anything to them, and the palyer should - in a Cyberpunk game - be allowed to create a character with no significant past.

The Lifepath is a vast net of possibilities, many charts to choose or roll from, but not absolutely everything of it needs to have a profound effect in the game. it can well be categorized into major stuff (that provides the bulk of the reactivity) and flavor stuff that might offer few dialog options here and there but mostly just for flavor.
 
@Sirenapples: I think you are on the RIGHT forums! WE LOVE HAVING YOU HERE. People who tell other people which forums to go to, not so much them. IRONY.

You are just asking CD Project Red to forget everything they were good at, and instead make a Skyrim scifi simulator. You should probably read more about the company and their games before expecting them to throw all their concepts in a garbage can to follow what Bethesda considers a true RPG. And yes, that is exactly what you are asking for. A Bethesda game with mods, tons of simulating activities and a world that you can explore and build your character withing. Do you know what is missing? A compelling story. True narratives and true character build up. These concepts don't exist in recent in Bethesda titles. The connection you have to your character is usually one in your fantasy alone. Because nothing that happens ingame actually evolve anything about your character.

You seem to be a huge Skyrim fan and you have apparently not even touched a single Witcher game. I honestly do believe you are asking the wrong company for your game. And I would personally be disappointed if CD Project Red would just become another Bethesda. And interesting, compelling and evolving storylines would just be thrown into another garbage can, like how every Bethesda RPG has done in recent times.

PS. I enjoyed Skyrim alot. I also play Fallout 4 and think it is really good. However, I don't think companies should just copy eachother. Bethesda and CD Project Red have completly different approaches as to how they createRPG's. You can get lost in the universe of Skyrim. In the world and how interesting it is to explore it. You will become badass and build up your character. Isn't too bad that there are tons of mods to make the experience better. In spite of all this, nothing in Skyrim comes even close to the intersting storylines that you get in the Witcher series. While Bethesda is more about creating a world-simulator, CD Project Red has always been about making a story come to life. Bethesda is more about customizationwhile CDPR is more about immersion. I enjoy each company for what it does well. I don't want CDPR to become Bethesda 2.0 just because I like one of Bethesda's titles and believe that's how all RPG's should be like.

{Sard Edit: ye-ah]
 
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Hokay. We don't tell or gently suggest people should go away here. That's my job. If someone likes Skyrim a WHOLE lot, they are welcome to post and spend time here. Also if they hate it.

The door is open to nearly everyone - everyone who isn't being a jackass, that is. And even then, there is Redemption!

So keep this in mind. If you disagree with their opinion, say so, and do it civilly, preferably with humour. This is fine. Asking, suggesting or hinting they should go away from here? Yeah, don't do that.
 
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Directions and quest design - in TW3 I couldn't often turn off the minimap, avoid the journal, and still make it to my destination based on what I see, and what the characters told me. I'd love for that possibility in CP77, it makes traveling much more immersive for those who are interested. So rather than "go to the village", it's "go to the village beyond the river, then north with the branching road from the main one", or things like that. CP77 will also probably have many more signs to help with that.

Great post! I hadn't thought about how combat could use tweaks or leveling for that matter.

The part I quoted is something I have thought about, too. Or more precisely how the witcher knew exactly where he should go. It did break immersion a little for me. I was thinking it might have been better to have spent a skill point in Geralt's mutant super senses to get that "tracked objective display" and fit it within why Geralt should be able to do this.

In CP2077, I could see the player investing in software that might help him find objectives more easily but I think given players total access at the beginning does like you say, it subtracts from immersion.
 
My biggest issue with the Witcher 3 was the fact that CDPR played it safe as far as the main story went. They did not take any risks, and so the story turned into a bland and predictable one. I think it turned out this way, because they wanted to keep the book fans happy by not getting too carried away with the main characters from the books.

I want CDPR to experiment and take the storytelling to extreme heights with Cyberpunk.

CDPR should not be afraid to take risks with CyberPunk's story, they should not play it safe, and they should be bold, innovative, and unapologetic.
 
The Wtcher series while not following the books word-for-word was, and should have been, restrained by them.
Far to many games wind up with nothing in common with their source material but the title.

Given that CP2077 is a setting rather then a pre-existing story they should have a lot more freedom.
 

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The Wtcher series while not following the books word-for-word was, and should have been, restrained by them.
Far to many games wind up with nothing in common with their source material but the title.
True, but the other two games are entertaining because they built on the book material rather than slavishly devoting themselves to it, and they gave us characters like Kalkstein and Roche and Ves and Letho, something the third game was lacking. Instead of something new or something that hinged more on the previous games' events, a lot of the game was spent going, "hey, remember that time this happened in the books, or this other thing?" Makes those who binged on the books happy, I guess, but those of us who preferred the games (or their more nuanced politics) were left out in the cold.
 
Strangely enough, the Wikipedia article covering CP2077 has given me more information than any article I've read pertaining to the project.

When I read the Wikipedia article it mentioned how the staff at CD Projeckt Red had big challenges with Witcher 3 and how they learned some big lessons which will make CP2077 stronger in some areas.
When I read these things it makes me wish I were on the development team just so I can experience the excitement of solving some of those challenges.

Other times I'm glad I'm not on the development team because I don't think I appreciate as much, just how cool the final product is and I'd always want to be tweaking it long after release.
 
Other times I'm glad I'm not on the development team because I don't think I appreciate as much, just how cool the final product is and I'd always want to be tweaking it long after release.

Very this.

I mean, yes, I'd love to help write or level design CP2077. But every other thing I've built or written, I've -never- been satisfied with. You always want to tinker and adjust and stare at and modify and fix.

When we were building our house, a friend told me, "Use the two-week rule. If it still bothers you in two weeks, fix or adjust. Otherwise, you probably won't even notice it after that." He was right, but if you -do- notice certain things, you never unnotice them.

I loved my favourite games - Bloodlines, PST, Fallout, W3, DXHR, JK, etc. I'm glad I don't have to live with their flaws forever.
 
That two week rule is pretty smart.

But to return to the subject.

One of the many things I liked in Witcher 3 was how the people in the world, or ambient NPCs, seemed to have a purpose. Everything they did with their time or with the things they talked about are the kinds of activities that people in that world would do or say.

The thing is, in the Witcher we know people would go to the farm to farm. Go to an Inn to mingle hammer at an anvil. But sometimes they weren't so predictable. They'd talk about strange occurrences or pick fights with Redanian guards.

I guess people of the Cyberpunk world might vary a little more. It seems like such a small detail but giving these NPCs realistic things to do shapes a world more colorfully than a gorgeous landscape. Sometimes its just not enough to put a merchant behind a counter and in CP2077 will there even be shops? Gang members will loiter, but maybe if you watched them for a little bit you might find out why.
While it is enough to ask what would people or NPCs in a cyberpunk world do? The question why are they doing it is what really gives it some umph. The world in Witcher was really brought to life when I'd hear or see just why they were doing what they were doing. Less predictability, I suppose?
 
Great thread. I was going to post something similar in an existing thread about HoS in the Witcher forum, but it's somewhat buried already and feedback for CP77 would likely go better here.

It should be noted that I know near nada about the Cyberpunk world, so some feedback might seem off. Also, I only played TW3 at the end of December 2015, marathon-ing the game and finishing it in a week. So all the updates/improvements were already in place and I was able to distance myself from any release-day hype/disappointment/whatever. However, I haven't played HoS (which I heard is fantastic).

Finally, right now I'm in the middle (50h in) of a Fallout: New Vegas (modded) playthrough so I might use it for reference.

(I labelled each section in this post after writing about half of this because it really is a WALL of text, but I want to give as much feedback as possible to CDPR so that they can make CP77 even better.)

Leveling

About leveling in TW3, I actually thought they did a decent job when it came to unlocking active abilities. I threw all my points into swordsmanship (a few into general), and found that my strategy changed after unlocking the "spinning wheel of death" move. Previously I would just dodge then strike and maybe sign, but after that I threw on quen and spun into the group before rolling back out. Also, the ability to deflect arrows helped immensely against archers, since I no longer had to rush them first. After seeing how the sign tree can unlock alternative modes and testing out a few of them in a bit of post-story play, I think CDPR did pretty well. Can't speak for the alchemy tree though, in a glance it didn't look as fleshed out; then again I haven't tried it.

However, since Cyberpunk is going to have many different classes, I'd rather CDPR focus on differentiating each class instead of five different active ability upgrades for each class - that sounds like an impossible amount of work for the scope of the game they're looking at. This shouldn't be too difficult; the stealth-guns build I'm using in New Vegas right now obviously plays very differently from a melee fighter and from a scientist who cowers behind his companion meat-shield. And from Sard's posts in this thread, I gather Cyberpunk has an even greater range of classes. So variety between classes almost covers itself.

Nonetheless, it's important that there's still progression within each class, which might be easier to design for certain classes and harder for others. Since I have little in-depth knowledge of Cyberpunk's classes, I'll just suggest a universal way to do this that can complement individual classes' abilities: equipment. While the essentials of the stealth build in NV doesn't change much throughout (stick to shadows, etc.), the equipment you get as you progress gives you more options when approaching a target.

Unlocking the sniper rifle allows you to take targets out from afar, whereas the early-game silenced pistol necessitates you sneaking up close. In Night City, it can mean the difference between sniping a target from another building or crawling up behind him. So in a sense, you would still be unlocking "active abilities" as you progress, just in the form of equipment. And you don't even have to restrict the sniper rifle to spawning at a certain level; just make it prohibitively expensive for early-game characters.

Loot

This talk of equipment brings me to another point of discussion: looting. To be frank, I didn't care much for the loot in TW3. Once I realized witcher gear sets existed, it was all I gunned for. The likeliest reasons I can hypothesize for this are:

1) Confusing categorization. I'm not even sure why I had five "Novigrad Sword"s that varied in class. Why was one a "magic item" and the other a "common item"? (or something similar) Perhaps it was really obvious and I missed it, but I think a Novigrad Sword should be a Novigrad Sword, and the only difference between individual ones should have been durability and/or runes. No need to change the class of the sword just because it has a svarog rune on it. In NV, a 9mm pistol is a 9mm pistol, so despite the vast number of guns I remained perfectly clear on what loot I already had and what I wished to keep. In TW3 I ended up just selling every sword except the Witcher gear ones, because I'd expended actual effort to obtain those.

2) Weapons mostly look and play the same. But to be honest, I'm letting CDPR off the hook for this one because it really can't be helped. No way in hell would a witcher ever be caught firing a crossbow swinging a mace or a poleaxe, and there's really only one way to use a sword. Furthermore, there are no swords in TW3's universe that burn with literal fire or encase enemies in blocks of ice, so there's that. For Cyberpunk 2077, this should naturally not be the case since all manner of guns and technological weaponry can be invented. I'm hoping each weapon will play and feel different too. If it comes down to a choice between more-weapons-less-variety and less-weapons-more-variety (variety being how they play) then I agree 100% with EliHarel that the latter should triumph.

I'll say this about the loot I found, though. Despite the hordes of people claiming every armor piece except witcher gear looked goddamn ugly (which is kind of true...) I HUGELY appreciated how every piece of armor had a place in the world. What I mean is that the armors were not "Light Combat Mail" and "Heavy Iron Armor", but instead "Skellige Gambeson" or "Redanian Halberdier's Armor". Excellent attention to detail. Of course the result is that none of them looked good on Geralt the Witcher but it was totally worth it. Not sure how this'll be done in Cyberpunk though, since a "Leather Jacket" is... a "Leather Jacket"... hm. Well, I'm not the brains behind the game. You have my support from the sidelines REDs!

Moving on.

Enemy Variety

Enemy variety was decent, I felt, in TW3. Actually, all things considered it was pretty good because different enemies did require different tactics, and I'd already forgotten about the 80-enemy statement come December whoops. That said, the fact that Cyberpunk features mainly humans might pose some problems.

I think the quickest way to solve it is to first assign a class to each enemy. By class, I mean one of the classes from the list the players pick from, not some arbitrary class like "Brute" or "Scout". This immediately provides variety and can lead to interesting situations if the player fights against someone from the same class as them.

Second, throw enemies of different classes together and if possible make their AI complement each other. For example, an enemy who can stun can do so first before their sniper lines up a shot. Or those with big guns can pin you down so their stealth man can get behind you while you struggle to escape the pin. Or there can even be three-way battles between two factions and you. This way, while you aren't actually making new types of enemies, you're dynamically creating new types of combat situations for the player to deal with.

The idea above actually came from TW3, funnily enough. After finishing the story, I realized I could spawn Imlerith and Eredin through the console. So I did so and fought them individually to check out their maneuvers. One time, I accidentally spawned both at once. What followed was one of the greatest fights I've ever had the pleasure to take part in. My tactics had to change, because Imlerith assaulted me up close and Eredin would warp to wherever my rolls took me. I only beat them after numerous attempts when I realized Eredin's AoE attacks would hit his friend as well. Thus I used Eredin's low EQ to wipe out Imlerith (which was tricky enough because it necessitated getting close to Imlerith), then soloed Eredin. I find this story particularly fascinating since the combination of two foes meant to be fought individually forced me to change tactics and come up with a whole new strategy. Food for thought, I suppose.

Dialogue

Dialogue in TW3 was excellent. I especially loved the opening scene - within two minutes the writers established just how in love Geralt and Yennefer were. Nonetheless, I felt the game suffered a little from the fact that Geralt was the protagonist; he had a personality that was 70% set in stone, so sometimes I felt like the dialogue prompts were there because dialogue prompts, not because there was a choice to make regarding Geralt's attitude towards the situation. In CP77 this should be different, since there'll be many skills and classes available. New Vegas is a great case study for this.

Also... I think the game should have a silent protagonist, since as I understand it Geralt needing to say something for every choice can severely inflate the cost of game development, thus limiting the number of choices possible. Just look at the divisive reaction to Fallout 4's voiced protagonist. If a silent protagonist can result in more choices, I say go for it.

Quest Design

I think TW3's quest design was a mixed bag for me. I'm not talking about the dialogue, which was mostly very well-written. I'm talking about the actual gameplay and availability of choice. While I appreciate the fact that you could make choices to influence the outcomes of quests (I haven't killed the Botchling but it's great that it's an option, etc.), I think TW1 still had the best quest design. For example, the quest in Act 2 of TW1 involving the autopsy and detective investigation has never, ever been matched by any other quest in any game I've ever played except for the main quest of New Vegas.

In the case of TW1, while there are only really two outcomes (being right or wrong) the process of the investigation seemed to involve so many possibilities that you really felt like there were a load of choices (or suspects) to pick from. Also, you weren't making choices in cutscenes alone, you also made choices on who to question first etc. While it may have been a completely arbitrary choice, that's illusion of choice done 100% right. And your choices during the autopsy still really had an impact on the outcome anyway, so it works out.

For New Vegas, there are basically four separate factions to choose from during the second half of the main quest, and you could take them on all at once, but your actions for one faction are eventually going to piss another faction off. So the whole thing becomes a high-stakes game where you're constantly considering who to prioritize. Just like in TW1, you're not making a choice in cutscenes alone; you're doing it by choosing which quests to take on first. If this was possible in TW3 I don't recall it. Thus I would greatly appreciate it if this could be done in Cyberpunk. In fact, it should be easier than in TW3 since you'll likely be able to choose factions to join, whereas in TW you're always playing Geralt the Witcher, from the School of the Wolf.

World

Last segment! My apologies for the wall!

I'll start this last part by saying the REDs did an absolutely phenomenal job with TW3's world design. I've read stuff about the game and it turns out huge attention was put into details like the layers of forests (apparently everything from the understory to the canopy to the emergent layer is there?!) and just the geography of the whole world. So that's a fantastic job done there. I personally felt the scale, as in the distance from village to village, was alright. The Pontar really helped separate Novigrad from Velen, so I never actually felt they were too close. Atmosphere in each area was also spot-on; I could immediately tell if I was in Velen, in the outskirts of Novigrad, or in Skellige. Amazing.

That said... I do have a minor (ok not really minor) issue with the world of TW3 and that is the Point of Interest system.

From what I've read, the POIs sprang into existence when the team had finally finished building the world and done all the quests in 2014, but realized the world was kind of empty. With not much time left they apparently put some of the team together to pump out the POIs while everyone else went bug hunting. Given this context, I guess I can see why it turned out the way it did. That doesn't make it less problematic though.

The biggest problem with TW3 is that the world, in my opinion, doesn't feel very alive. It feels lived in, which is very different, but sometimes not as if it is being lived in. There are hundreds of pieces of suggested history like this:



Which are fantastic at making you feel like this world existed long before you set foot there. But when it comes to the inhabitants who occupy the world now, it doesn't quite feel that way. And the POI system wasn't really the way to make up for that. The most obvious example is the MOUNTAIN of smuggler caches plaguing the seas of the Skellige Isles. If there are so many smugglers stashing their stuff, then where are the smugglers? Why don't we see them sailing about, retrieving items from their stash? For that matter, where are the raids that the people of Skellige so love to talk about? It's all talk and no action - you never see them leaving on raids, not to mention actually conducting raids.

I guess the lack of ships sailing the sea could've been an engine limitation, or perhaps they ran out of time. That's fair enough I guess. But in Velen, I think the trick to making the place feel more inhabited was not to fill it with places to go (POIs). It should have been to fill it with people/creatures to see.

90% of the time when you see a creature or a bandit they're pouncing on or preparing to pounce on your ass. That just makes them feel created for the player, and less like they were created for the world. In New Vegas, half the time when I stumble upon a mob they're fighting another mob: bandits fighting NCR troops, or even just normal people fighting off giant ants. In TW3, for example, monsters should have attacked villagers, especially the ones that go off to pick herbs. Wolves should've gone after lone bandits/villagers. Chorts should've been seen fighting fiends for territory. Griffins should've been seen fending off squads of soldiers. Maybe even a mix of Redanian and Nilfgaardian soldiers, so that when the monster is dead they turn on each other. Would've been pretty poetic. Hm.

You thus feel less like the cog in the machine, and more like a cog in the machine.

Also, having bandits actually moving from place to place would have made sense. They wouldn't just wait for prey, they'd go after their dinner. This actually has been done by CDPR, if I'm not mistaken, since NPCs in Novigrad and Velen's villages have daily schedules. Thus I assume they ran out of time for the poor bandits of Velen. Or maybe bandits in Velen didn't even exist before POIs. If that was the case...

Just make a smaller map. Especially now that the main focus of Cyberpunk is a city. I don't even mind cutting the wasteland outside the city walls if it means every inhabitant in this city had a schedule, and a majority of the inhabitants interacted with other inhabitants instead of only the player. And in a meaningful way too, like how the butcher in TW2's Flotsam chopped meat all day before heading to the tavern at night for a drink and staggering home later. Not like how the two farmers on the outskirts of Novigrad talked about their "bad harvest" and how that made them a "shite farmer" every time Master Geralt walked past them. At that point you're pushing the illusion a little too hard - it's a great piece of dialogue to add to the atmosphere but they didn't have to do it all the time to make the place feel alive. Just cut down the map size, make it hella intricate and full of NPCs who actually live a life, and I think/hope it'd be much better. Probably. I'm no game designer, so it's just my opinion.

Aaaanywayys I think that's it. I'd like to say that TW3 really is one of my favorite games of all, But the point of this thread is to help CDPR one-up themselves, and so I hope this post helps them out in some small way.

Once more, apologies for the wall!
 

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When we were building our house, a friend told me, "Use the two-week rule. If it still bothers you in two weeks, fix or adjust. Otherwise, you probably won't even notice it after that." He was right, but if you -do- notice certain things, you never unnotice them.

Well I'llbeedaamned ... a smrt' Canuk ... who'd a thunk.
 
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Lessons learned:

1. quality over quantity, bigger isnt always better.
2. have a mature main character someone not designed by a 12 year old with scars all over (cause thats thuper cool) and a rough voice with no personality.
3. have a focused main narrative, side quests are cool but they should no distract from the main quest.
 
Lessons learned:

3. have a focused main narrative, side quests are cool but they should no distract from the main quest.

Agreed to certain degree at least. I think, while there obviously needs to be some side stuff that doesn't really concern the big picture, most of the side missions and quests should have a tie-in to the main narrative to actually consider about. Big and small respective to the situation at hand.
 

227

Forum veteran
Using cutting edge technology, I've put together my best guess at what a 12 year-old Sapkowski would look like:



I think, while there obviously needs to be some side stuff that doesn't really concern the big picture, most of the side missions and quests should have a tie-in to the main narrative to actually consider about. Big and small respective to the situation at hand.
If the game's about saving yourself rather than the world, I think side content unrelated to the main story makes a lot more sense since you'd most likely be taking jobs in return for payment rather than helping random strangers out of the kindness of your heart. Too many tie-ins could come across game-ish, like the main character's life stuff is the only thing happening in the world.
 
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