RPG & unjustified expectations?

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There seem to be two camps, when it comes to CP and whether the game lived up to expectations, that people overhyped it and whether or not one would categorize it as an RPG compared to what was promised. Often it is very difficult to combine all thoughts and reasons into a post, while at the same time provide documentation for why one feels that ones view is justified.

So I found this video with some people going through exactly this topic and would like to hear if people agree with them or not?


I personally share their views on pretty much everything, including that the game is very enjoyable. So that is not the point of this post, but rather what people think about whether or not people are justified in feeling that CDPR oversold the game as an RPG and why people expected something else.
 
My opinion on the controversy is the fact that I am split.

1. I think that a lot of fans created a video game in their head which was completely divorced from the game that was promised and presented. There's people who are complaining about the Militech, Meredith Stout, and Night City PD plotlines that are completely products of their imagination of things that they thought they MIGHT do in the game. Ditto playing the corporations against each other and entirely separate Life Paths. I've actually PLAYED Cyberpunk 2020 and that game is all about being a mercenary criminal so this is silly.

2. The game is pretty damn shallow and that is something that is entirely on CD Projekt Red. The game's main quest is about 30 hours and that's about 10 hours less than Dragon Age: Origins with far less focus on Companions and strong NPCs that make these sorts of games. Everyone generally likes Panam, Judy, River, and Kerry (they may even LOVE a couple of those) but the game is pretty absent of time to spend with them. Indeed, Johnny is about the only one you do get a decent time with. The plot is also incredibly "meh" in terms of stakes because you dying is something that isn't as motivating a quest as people think.

It's like Arthur Morgan's plot in RD2 except its absent the idea of Arthur trying to save his friends and doing a little good with his life in his little time left. V is just selfishly trying to save himself/herself and that makes him/her less interesting.

3. The game kills a staggering number of characters just before they actually get interesting and the player develops an attachment to them. Jackie, Evelyn, Dex, T-Bugg, and potentially Goro all end up dead before you can really build a storyline about them. In a game as short as this, the NPCs are going to determine whether or not you are going to become immersed in the world. Cutting out the entire first ACTs worth of companions leaves you with having to develop all those attachments again.

4. The game has no actual villain and that is pretty ridiculous in a fucking noir crime game. Yorinobu doesn't even know you're alive and you never face him down, Dex is killed by Goro before you can get revenge, and Adam Smasher has just a few lines here and there. Ironically, I most hated the Voodoo Boys but you deal with them (or don't) too much even when you might want to avenge Evelyn. As such, the game really feels impersonal as not only do you not have love to motivate you (jackie aside), you don't have hate.
 
As a dude who curated (see here - Everything We've Heard So Far About Cyberpunk 2077) and updated what CDPR and reviewers were saying about the game for over a year, I feel like what we got is very close to what they said. There are some things that changed or were cut from initial show in 2018 (e.g. netrunning, wall running, multiple apartments, flathead being used as part of Techy tree, etc etc), but just about everything that was changed/cut/less than prominently imagined in gaming community was disclosed well in advance.

There are two things that can be attributed to CDPR though for overselling what the game was going to be even in the days right before release ... namely (1) good performance on last gen consoles, and (2) the extent of non-linearity and choices and consequences. Regarding the first issue - while no doubt they did as best they could with the hardware and their engine, the former claim was incorrect ... it's that simple. The latter claim is more a question of degree ... the game is considerably less linear than TW3, does have choices and consequences, and side quests can (rarely) impact the main quest. However, the amount of choices and consequences felt underwhelming compared to how it was presented. That's partially - perhaps even mostly - on me the reader/listener, however I do think it was oversold.

Having said that ... pretty much everything else is very close to what they said, and what I was expecting. It definitely fits comfortably in the "action RPG" genre (not that the categories really mean much or have clearly defined boundaries).
 
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"RPG & unjustified expectations?"
Honestly, I just watched the trailers, so I had no particular expectations except: "it's when we play it !!!".
But I must quote this post by @Didacgomez, the best post about : "RPG ? What it must be exactly !"
After many threads and discussions, I did a short-list of things that some people think is a "must" for a RPG :

-The game needs to be open-world with sandbox elements.
-The game cannot be an open-world, RPGs in open-world are shallow and can only be hub based.
-The game perspective can only be 1st person.
-The game perspective must be 3rd person.
-The game perspective must be isometric.
-The game can only be real-time because turn-based is immersion breaking.
-Combat can only be turn-based to decouple player skills from character skills.
-The skill checks should be hardcoded and with random number generation.
-The skill checks cannot rely on luck (people complaining in Baldur's III about failing dialogs).
-Skill checks should not block a player to achieve something because is stealing player agency.
-All characters need to be voiced.
-All characters need to be voiced except de protagonist.
-All dialogs need to be text based because voice limits the amount of dialog.
-The game need to have branches that close other branches, but all should lead to equally satisfying endings.
-The player should be confronted to decisions, but it should know beforehand the consequences because its unfair to close something for an early game decision (relates with above, in CP2077 I saw it related to punching Fingers...).
-Leveling system has to offer flexibility.
-Leveling system only makes sense if it increases skills like in D&D (I would not dare to say that a class system is flexible).
-Need to have a lot of loot.
-The loot needs to be exciting to discover.
-But loot cannot rely in random generation.
-No loot please.

.....

I hope CDPR devs take a look to this short list and implement all the features in the next game it will be a huge success and probably some Nobel prize will be awarded.
Thanks again to @Didacgomez for this thorough analysis ;)
Original thread > Is this game an rpg?
 
1. I think that a lot of fans created a video game in their head which was completely divorced from the game that was promised and presented.
I agree that there is some degree of that, but again, based on the marketing material that CDPR released about the game, I don't really think you can blame the players for this.

If they constantly push the idea, "Who do you want to be?", "You chose, who you are going to be", "The choice is yours" etc. then you get the impression that you will make meaningful choices that define your character. Are you going to be a complete asshole? The good guy? A selfish person? etc. That is what the whole branching of stories and consequences in the marketing material make you believe.

(2) the extent of non-linearity and choices and consequences. Regarding the first issue - while no doubt they did as best they could with the hardware and their engine, former claim was incorrect ... it's that simple. The latter claim is more a question of degree ... the game is considerably less linear than TW3, does have choices and consequences, and side quests can (rarely) impact the main quest. However, the amount of choices and consequences felt underwhelming compared to how it was presented. That's partially - perhaps even mostly - on me the reader/listener, however I do think it was oversold.

I will just focus on the choices and branching to avoid the post going all over the place :) And because, I think this is probably the biggest issue I personally have with CP in regards to RP. Having stats, XP etc. is a huge part of RPGs, but also, it's not really enough to define a game as such. I mean Diablo is an action looter RPG, but doesn't really have any player choices in regards to story and character development. But then again, it doesn't try to sell itself on it either.

But this is from that thread you curated:
In Cyberpunk 2077 we take the role of V, but we can also shape her a lot through our decisions and through our relationships with characters like Johnny Silverhand. So when the credits roll, one interesting thing would be to think about what the game actually says about us as the players.

That ending will be heavily impacted by player choice, with there being more possible endings than there were in the Witcher 3. And after those credits role, CDPR says the game will feature more replayability than prior CDPR titles due to it's branching storyline. CDPR also said they "found a really cool way" to let players keep playing after the main quest is concluded.


To me, this is really not the case. I have seen a lot of people playing CP and I would say that 95% of them are doing the exact same missions as I did and even if they chose different options, they end up doing the same stuff anyway. And to me this is what makes a game an adventure game, your character doesn't develop, the choices you choose have no impact on what happens or how the story develops. After you finish the game, there is "no really cool way" to let players keep playing. There is nothing but the gigs and finishing up the whatever mission you didn't already do. And I really don't think that there is more replayability than there is in TW3, due to branching storylines. Because from what I could see, this is not a thing, you choose one thing in a dialog and one thing happens, you reload the game and choose the exact opposite and it result in the same thing or something which is of no consequence for anything related to the story.

And when you hear the marketing person say "Everything you do will have consequences and shape the world around you" and "So many options and so many possibilities", it doesn't really reflect the experiences you get when you play the game, I think.

On my second playthrough, which I cut short since I got tired of the game, I intentionally try to choose different dialog options than I had chosen the first time, and it played out pretty much the same all the time. I didn't feel a difference between my first playthrough and the second one, meaning that my character were more sinister or anything, it was the same generic character, which people reacted to exactly the same way, just using a different weapon.

And I don't really think its valid to really compare it to much to TW3, because it uses fixed characters, you take on the role as Geralt, which is well established at what he do, how people like or dislike witchers etc. So you are not suppose to create Geralt from scratch in the same way as you are V.

V is merc, but besides that you are completely undefined. Could be a women or man. You can have a nomad, street or corpo background, besides that you are sold the idea, that you "could be" or chose who you want to be in this world of cyberpunk. But what you end up being is a generic character. Whereas Geralt in TW3 has a well established background, friends, lore etc. already in place.
 
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V is merc, but besides that you are completely undefined. Could be a women or man. You can have a nomad, street or corpo background, besides that you are sold the idea, that you "could be" or chose who you want to be in this world of cyberpunk. But what you end up being is a generic character. Whereas Geralt in TW3 has a well established background, friends, lore etc. already in place.

I'd argue that almost all V's are pretty much the same as well. You can decide things like whether to kill people, not kill people, kidnap them, or cut off their heads but none of this really matters. Everyone more or less reacts to V the exact same way. There's not much in the way of choice and some of the choices that DO have consequences probably shouldn't.

Like you can be locked out of getting the best ending by being rude to Johnny but Johnny is an ASSHOLE and you being an asshole back should probably improve your chances.
 
I'd argue that almost all V's are pretty much the same as well. You can decide things like whether to kill people, not kill people, kidnap them, or cut off their heads but none of this really matters. Everyone more or less reacts to V the exact same way. There's not much in the way of choice and some of the choices that DO have consequences probably shouldn't.

Like you can be locked out of getting the best ending by being rude to Johnny but Johnny is an ASSHOLE and you being an asshole back should probably improve your chances.
Yes, but that is also one of the points the guys in the video makes, the ending you get, pretty much depends on 1 single scene and what you chose here, except for the secret ending, which ultimately end in the same anyway. But simply because you have one option to choose how the game ends, its not exactly a branching story, where a lot of what you did during the game decides it or shape your character and options. And in general, you are choosing how your character is going to die, its not exactly what you as a player is interesting in, the fun part is to shape your character, are you going to be a mean son of a bitch, or a rich person living in luxury or a good guy. Having to choose how you die, its sort of to late :D
 
That ending will be heavily impacted by player choice
For me, that's very true :)
The endings are heavily impacted by player choices.
Not with the common way, by simply answer some questions (choose the right dialogue lines) or doing some actions, but by the choice of doing or not the side quests.
Examples : If you ignore Panam quest line, you will never have the Star ending. If you ignore johnny and skip all his dialogues, you can't have Fear the Reaper.

They may not be impacted the way many expect, but they are :)
 
I agree 100% with Fudgemuppet. Was pretty much my experiance too and they seem too align with my expectations for the game. Was it overhyped? perhaps. Been interested since the first teaser trailer and that a long time waiting for a game. Hopefully DLC will flesh out the world more and give it more characters/storys(witch i think is cp2077s biggest positive point) More world interaction and so on would be nice too but im not holding my breath.
 

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So that is not the point of this post, but rather what people think about whether or not people are justified in feeling that CDPR oversold the game as an RPG and why people expected something else.
It is an RPG, just not very deep one. Still deeper than any of their previous games.
About failed expectations on RPG front - you have two groups of people:
- those who (rightly) criticize the game for having too few dialogue options and meaningful choices in majority of sidequests
- those who [...] criticize the game for not having 3rd person camera, eating and drinking animations, minigames, dating with love interests and other leisure activities
Former are justified in their feeling, [...].

Edit: OK, I'll behave. :)
I though that I was focused purely on arguments, but looking back, I can see that it came out more personal than I meant. Sorry.
 
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This topic always seems to cause trouble, as proven once again. So, a reminder.

It is NOT okay to attack, ridicule, or otherwise be respectful towards other people regardless of what opinions they have.
Similarly, please focus on the arguments presented by people and not on the people themselves.

Please respect others' opinions, or refrain from commenting on them if you cannot.
 
I struggle to see how it's less linear than Witcher 3. It's MUCH more linear. It feels like I always have an option to treat someone in 2 or more ways in W3. In CP, no matter what I do or say, the result is almost always the same. There are some choices in the beginning and in the end, that impact things, but everything else is like an interactive linear cutscene, where you allowed to rotate your head and ask extra questions.
 
I agree that there is some degree of that, but again, based on the marketing material that CDPR released about the game, I don't really think you can blame the players for this.

If they constantly push the idea, "Who do you want to be?", "You chose, who you are going to be", "The choice is yours" etc. then you get the impression that you will make meaningful choices that define your character. Are you going to be a complete asshole? The good guy? A selfish person? etc. That is what the whole branching of stories and consequences in the marketing material make you believe.



I will just focus on the choices and branching to avoid the post going all over the place :) And because, I think this is probably the biggest issue I personally have with CP in regards to RP. Having stats, XP etc. is a huge part of RPGs, but also, it's not really enough to define a game as such. I mean Diablo is an action looter RPG, but doesn't really have any player choices in regards to story and character development. But then again, it doesn't try to sell itself on it either.

But this is from that thread you curated:
In Cyberpunk 2077 we take the role of V, but we can also shape her a lot through our decisions and through our relationships with characters like Johnny Silverhand. So when the credits roll, one interesting thing would be to think about what the game actually says about us as the players.

That ending will be heavily impacted by player choice, with there being more possible endings than there were in the Witcher 3. And after those credits role, CDPR says the game will feature more replayability than prior CDPR titles due to it's branching storyline. CDPR also said they "found a really cool way" to let players keep playing after the main quest is concluded.


To me, this is really not the case. I have seen a lot of people playing CP and I would say that 95% of them are doing the exact same missions as I did and even if they chose different options, they end up doing the same stuff anyway. And to me this is what makes a game an adventure game, your character doesn't develop, the choices you choose have no impact on what happens or how the story develops. After you finish the game, there is "no really cool way" to let players keep playing. There is nothing but the gigs and finishing up the whatever mission you didn't already do. And I really don't think that there is more replayability than there is in TW3, due to branching storylines. Because from what I could see, this is not a thing, you choose one thing in a dialog and one thing happens, you reload the game and choose the exact opposite and it result in the same thing or something which is of no consequence for anything related to the story.

And when you hear the marketing person say "Everything you do will have consequences and shape the world around you" and "So many options and so many possibilities", it doesn't really reflect the experiences you get when you play the game, I think.

On my second playthrough, which I cut short since I got tired of the game, I intentionally try to choose different dialog options than I had chosen the first time, and it played out pretty much the same all the time. I didn't feel a difference between my first playthrough and the second one, meaning that my character were more sinister or anything, it was the same generic character, which people reacted to exactly the same way, just using a different weapon.

And I don't really think its valid to really compare it to much to TW3, because it uses fixed characters, you take on the role as Geralt, which is well established at what he do, how people like or dislike witchers etc. So you are not suppose to create Geralt from scratch in the same way as you are V.

V is merc, but besides that you are completely undefined. Could be a women or man. You can have a nomad, street or corpo background, besides that you are sold the idea, that you "could be" or chose who you want to be in this world of cyberpunk. But what you end up being is a generic character. Whereas Geralt in TW3 has a well established background, friends, lore etc. already in place.

uhh, in think you are conflating having choices and shaping a character with having different story options, that is not the same thing. You can play a choose your own adventure game as the hulk, where hulk can choose to walk left or walk right, smash doors, or smash walls, and end up with a very different journey, but the hulk is exactly the same character, you are changing the path, but not playing a different character. Cyberpunk focuses on giving the player a lot of control on who V is. That said, Vs path is way more variable than what you make it seem. The difference is mostly that many choices don't usually create exclusive content.

for example, how you choose to deal with the VDBs is a huge difference in story and character, but you don't consider it as mattering because it didnt create exclusive content. Another example is you could not get along extremely well with Judy, which matters a lot, for her plotline, and your character's story, but you would say it doesn't matter.

The reality is there is a huge difference from player to player in terms of who V is, how it effects those around V, and where V's story ends up, but many people don't realize it, because it doesn't usually exclude anything, and they make it easy to experience it all.


Its interesting because it implies people evaluate freedom of choice in terms of what options they lose, rather than how many options they have.

It is simply not accurate at all to say V is not an incredibly varied character, shaped by the player's choices. Or that Vs choices don't effect the world or outcome of the game.
 

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I struggle to see how it's less linear than Witcher 3. It's MUCH more linear.
Main story is equally linear. Nothing you do or say in TW3 can change the course of the main plot until the epilogue. It isn't TW2 or even TW1. The only side quests that are acknowledged at all during the main quest are those related to Cerys, Hjalmar and Keira. Romance quests, too. I wouldn't say any of this is a game changer.
Cyberpunk at least offers non-linearity in gameplay.
What CP is missing the most compared to TW3 is having the consequences of some earlier choices to manifest much later in the game in a non-obvious way. For the game to catch you by surprise.
 
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I struggle to see how it's less linear than Witcher 3. It's MUCH more linear. It feels like I always have an option to treat someone in 2 or more ways in W3. In CP, no matter what I do or say, the result is almost always the same. There are some choices in the beginning and in the end, that impact things, but everything else is like an interactive linear cutscene, where you allowed to rotate your head and ask extra questions.

linear is not simply about the result. Linear is also about overall how many options you have, and when you have them. Being able to completely ignore everything in Westbrook, and get extremely in depth in Heywood, is a non linear game design. Being able to completely ignore Pan am after hellman, then finish the game, and go back to point of no return in the same save and become best pals with the nomads is a non linear game design. Being able to complete delamains sidequest as the first thing you do when waking up, or last thing, or never is a non linear choice. Being able to spend most of the game time in act 1, and zoom through act 2-3 in 10 hours is a non linear game design.
 
But what you do before does impact which options are available to you here. It's not just one scene because what you've done before impacts what can happen on the rooftop.
For me, that's very true :)
The endings are heavily impacted by player choices.
Not with the common way, by simply answer some questions (choose the right dialogue lines) or doing some actions, but by the choice of doing or not the side quests.
Examples : If you ignore Panam quest line, you will never have the Star ending. If you ignore johnny and skip all his dialogues, you can't have Fear the Reaper.

They may not be impacted the way many expect, but they are :)
Yes the guys in the video also make this point, but that is not really about making choices as much as it is to simply missing content. To me if that should have a meaning in regards to branching storylines, ignoring Silverhand and Panam should have consequences for you during the game and not simply which endings are available to you by removing certain options in the end.

Obviously it should impact this as well, but lets imagine that a certain gig, gave you the option for another secret ending, but that you never did it, because you didn't know about it, but whether or not you did it, it would never play a role in the game in any other way except in the ending, then its not really a branching story or player choices, rather its you not being aware or flagging this ending as a possibility.

The only way "choices matter" in a game, is if there are consequences to what you, as a player chooses during the game and to see how it reacts to you and the world and that it helps define your character in some way.

If you take the lifepath system, you could equally argue that this matters as well, because if you don't choose a specific lifepath, certain quests won't be available to you and therefore choice matters here as well. While it is technical true, it does nothing in regards to the roleplaying aspect of your character or the game as a whole.

As mentioned in another post, regarding how they could have made interesting choices and where they actually are very close at making good use of it. Is if you take Dexter and Evelyn in the beginning of the game. You are presented with the option to "backstab" Dexter or you can chose to be loyal to him.

Knowing the background of how Mercs operate through fixers, this at first seem like an excellent way to make the player have to choose what type of character they are, will you be the loyal one? or will you be the one that shit on the rules?
But this could have resulted in a lot of interesting branching of the story. Just like the preparation with Dexter, T-bug and Jackie, you have the option to come clean to Dexter, which again are choices that are interesting to make, because when you first play the game, you don't know if Dexter have you figured out or not, so lying to him might be a very bad idea.

Obviously whatever you choose here, doesn't matter at all, because you end up the same place anyway, but the illusion of choice is really good, just sad it goes no where.

Also had, they made it so Jackie weren't killed as he was, but later during a set up done by either Dexter or Evelyn had they been alive, because one of them had sold you out to Arasaka, a lot of interesting twists and turns could have been added here, giving the player the option to trying to figure out which of these were to be trusted and not, how to deal with them, who killed Jackie etc.

Another example of a more minor thing which could have been interesting, is when that guy in the bar, ask you to do some work on the side, without including the fixer, which V tells him is not how they operate, again you can choose to do it and it has absolutely no impact in the game at all.
But here, V could have called over the Fixer and told them what this guy were trying by pass the rules, which could lead to some nasty thing happening to him or you could chose to do it, which (had there been a reputation system) could impact this, it could have been a loyalty test made by the fixer to check if the Mercs a following the rules, a lot of different things could have branched off from a simple thing like this.

But do you see the difference between the player having to choose what to do in these situations, compared to simply not doing something and therefore not given a certain option in the end?

This to me, is why CP story works best in the beginning, the Maelstrom quest, the whole Dexter thing, these are choices that initially give the impression that they will impact the story based on your choices and will help to define V as a character, but they never take it anywhere.

And since CP doesn't have a reputation system, the fixers, the gangs and pretty much anyone you meet in the game, are hardly affected by how you as player choose to do things. And therefore you are never really evolving as a character, but pretty much stays a blank slate throughout the whole game. Imagine you could align with certain gangs, fixers, the corpos etc. then two playthroughs could be highly different, because the game is govern by your actions and these reputations.

I struggle to see how it's less linear than Witcher 3. It's MUCH more linear.
Its so long since I played TW3, so wouldn't comment on this. But my initial thoughts were exactly the same. I found TW3 to have a lot more options in regards to how to deal with stuff.
But again, I think its important to remember that in TW3, you are playing a well defined character. So you are not especially choosing whether Geralt should be the evil person or the good one, but rather how he should handle different situations.

Being able to completely ignore everything in Westbrook, and get extremely in depth in Heywood, is a non linear game design.
Yes, but as mentioned above to some of the others, simply missing content is not what makes a RPG good or meaningful. (If you didn't read the answer to the others in this post, it will explain it a bit better I think, just don't want to repeat it here.)
 
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What strikes me most these days is the number of people willing to watch these endlessly spawning YT videos and attach some form of relevance to them. They're just opinions edited in a way to provide maximum income for the dude wot made it, 'content creators' or some such pretentious twaddle. Everyone remembers what Harry Callaghan had to say about opinions. Be true to yourselves folks, it's only a game. Anyone upset by unmet expectations has received a timely lesson of modern living, take it as a positive and move on.
 
What strikes me most these days is the number of people willing to watch these endlessly spawning YT videos and attach some form of relevance to them. They're just opinions edited in a way to provide maximum income for the dude wot made it, 'content creators' or some such pretentious twaddle. Everyone remembers what Harry Callaghan had to say about opinions. Be true to yourselves folks, it's only a game. Anyone upset by unmet expectations has received a timely lesson of modern living, take it as a positive and move on.
You could say that about anything, why do papers spend time writing about new music, books or movies? It's just so people will buy their papers.

Also simply assuming that anyone that make a YT video is unqualified to share their opinion is a bit of a low shot I think. The video I linked above is made by two people, they include a lot experience from having completed the game three times with different builds, having captures a lot of footage, created a script for how to present their points, gathered stuff from CDPR own material and combined it all into a video. Its not exactly something you do in a few hours, I can tell you that it took me 125+ hours to complete the game on very hard, and I didn't 100% it, just to put it into perspective.

To me they appear pretty honest about what they think, they highlight both good and bad things about the game.

Simply assuming that all YTs are just people trying to scam others with quickly cheap made content, I think is a bit unfair to them, given that some people have put a lot of effort into these things. Obviously you will find videos with people just ranting and trying to gather viewers for the sake of that. But its not exactly hard to spot this and steer around such content.

I obviously agree, that for people that don't care to much about the games they play or who see games as some pointless quick entertainment, these discussion are not interesting at all. But likewise, I don't involve myself in book, sports or music discussions, because I don't care about it to much, whereas some people think that this is extremely interesting. People have different things that interest them, which is fair enough, but doesn't mean that its just a waste of time for them.
 
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