a multiplayer game of parenting and civilization building
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In real life, we don't care about our family, tribe, city, state, nation, or planet because its survival "buys" us a ticket to come back in future lives.
We care for some more abstract reasons. Maybe biology and attachment. Maybe Dawkins' selfish genes. But also social comfort, justice, ideology, and bigger-than-us meaning. Maslow's hierarchy of needs.
And these reasons affect us directly, just in this one life. It's not about a chain of lives. But just in this one life.
I don't really want you to care about your family or village long-term, across generations and lives. After you're dead, you're dead. I want you to REALLY care now, though. If invaders came in, I'd want you to care enough to stop them.
My other suggestion for getting reborn in the same family to make you really care now might work (or it might backfire and not work), but it's making you care now because of some concrete "later" benefit to yourself. It's making you care about THIS life because of what it will trigger for you in future lives. That seems like its missing the mark.
I don't want what happens to you in future lives to matter. At its heart, this is supposed to be a one hour game. And there are some people who have indeed played it that way. They luckily lived a "perfect" life in their first hour, with an amazing story that they will never forget, and they decided that it likely won't get much better than that, and that they got their $20 worth, and they never played again.
So even if you're playing that way, you should still really care. Even if you're playing that way, the sample story about sneaking into another town to steal a car and save your daughter's future should be possible and likely.
I want you frigging lecturing your kids about the importance of safety, the way real parents do. Currently, it's "TY MOM" followed by "GOOD LUCK" after three minutes. Much more attention and care is directed toward the last girl child. That's really great. But I want to amp that up so that the same level of importance is placed on every child.
I'm also perplexed that there have been no extremely long or even eternal family lines. 288 is the record, on a less-populated server, and 11 months ago. The usual weekly record never tops 80. That's 19 hours, and is impressive, but.... it's clear to me that it's just not important enough to anyone. I envisioned people hopping on discord during desperate times and trying to recruit players to keep the flame burning through the night.
I've been thinking about this issue a lot, for a while, and some crazier ideas have floated past. Here are a few. I'm looking for more.
--Cash prizes for long-lived families. The longer the family lives, the bigger the prize, maybe with each person rewarded in proportion to the fraction of the family tree that descended from them. Even living a single life, if you did good for your family, could result in a substantial prize.
--Some other kind of exterior reward for descendants that survive a long time. A leader-board for Eve's? Not sure why the descendants would care to boost their Eve's standing, and we kinda already have this on the family tree browser, but.... Maybe some other form of "live" leaderboard that shows the deceased player with the current largest number of descendants. Thus, it's not necessarily a long line, but a broad line that counts.
--Some other kind of extreme or crazy thing where you suffer two types of death in the game: the short-term, individual death, and the long-term death when your family dies out. Like imagine if that was the real game-over, somehow. Perma-family-death. What if the only way to play the game was to keep a family going forever? What if there was an extreme consequence for failing? This is there a bit already, when towns are lost. It is a kind of town roguelike already. What if it got even more extreme, with more at stake? Maybe each "run" could use only a subset of the tech tree. What if something special really was lost each time, collectively.
--One Eve on a server, ever... after the family dies out, the server is wiped. Death of a family = death of the world. Everyone clustered around (0,0), just like the old days, but to keep that sprawling civ going, some baby needs to survive. Big problem with Eve getting overrun by babies at the start. Maybe excess players are spawned nearby as Adams in the beginning.
--Two Eves on a server, with visually distinct family lines. Players are divided at random between one of these two families randomly, and permanently. When one family goes extinct, the other family "wins", and the server is wiped to start the whole process over again.
--Really crazy: What if you only got ONE LIFE each hour. Gosh, how this would change the game dramatically in so many ways. If you lived to 60 each time, you could play continuously. But if you ever died early, you'd spend the rest of the hour cooling off. Goodbye baby suicide. Every baby would indeed be precious to both the mother and the baby. Also goodbye to my financial success.
--Return to roots.... One Dollar One Hour One Life. You pay $1 per life, but if your descendant tree gets big enough, you get free lives that add up in a life bank. Having your family survive after you doesn't buy you lives in that family, but instead free lives in general (in other families, wherever).
--You only get a fixed number of lives each day. Having your descendants live long buys you extra lives each day.
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I've always wished that the linage showed the "long lines" where I was in the early generations rather than "you were generation 59" I don't find that exciting because those lives tend to be in large towns where it's hard to have any real impact and staying alive is generally easier. If I knew that a line that I was a part of in the first generations was about to die out I WOULD care, I often watch the eve towns I was a part of closely to see how long they lasted, to see if I did enough to keep things going.
But, it's hard to find the lineages with the way it's set up now. What I want is "greatest number of decedents" and "most generations after you" information.
Death of the family being death of the world is a bit interesting. But, to keep the later generations invested there needs to be more ways to leave your mark. A "death screen shot" could be one way, that way you could stand near what ever you accomplished and say some fitting last words to let the people before you know that you kept it going and didn't let them down.
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omnem cibum costis
tantum baca, non facies opus
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These are some wild ideas, and I do like this out-of-the-box thinking, but I worry that if the game changes too drastically then you will lose the audience that enjoys the game as it currently is.
What about dedicating one of the servers to experiment with these ideas? A server with one lineage that I can only play on once per day sounds very interesting. This would make that one life feel special without the expectation of returning to it.
You could have a “Hardcore” button on the main menu to join this server with a little message explaining the limitations.
One Hour One Life Crafting Reference
https://onetech.info/
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I mean some of those things definitely sound like fun events to play around with on other servers but I don't think I would repeatedly want to play something like Eve Red vs Eve Blue too often because if the Eves are close it's some sort of weird OHOL deathmatch game mode and if they're too far from ever interacting it's like playing on a low pop server that randomly restarts due to one of the Eves failing.
One Eve per server would probably be incredibly fun at the start as a bunch of Adams scramble around trying to tend to all of her needs while making sure her babies are probably taken care of. Again not something I think has too much replayablity but could be fun.
On a serious suggestion: Have you thought about removing the surname of dead eves off the available list of surnames? Sure it would suck not being able to pick your favorite lineage name but you at the very least you would somewhat care about your family because once the Radish family is dead there's never going to be another Radish family.
fug it’s Tarr.
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Will think about better displays in family tree browser.
Need to add a "folks with the most descendants" section.
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--One Eve on a server, ever... after the family dies out, the server is wiped. Death of a family = death of the world. Everyone clustered around (0,0), just like the old days, but to keep that sprawling civ going, some baby needs to survive. Big problem with Eve getting overrun by babies at the start. Maybe excess players are spawned nearby as Adams in the beginning.
If you end up going this route, maybe go with three or four eves at start.
--Grim
I'm flying high. But the worst is never first, and there's a person that'll set you straight. Cancelling the force within my brain. For flying high. The simulator has been disengaged.
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One thing I’ve learned from role playing games is that failures can often be more interesting than successes. Dying to a bear rampaging through town and witnessing the carnage is more memorable than spending an entire life baking pies so your descendants will have plenty of food.
Most of the ideas presented here reward optimal play, but if that is the case we could all live scavaging off the land because that is an easy way to survive. It also isn’t much fun.
What do you want the goal of the game to be? To have the longest lineage, or to have a unique and interesting story? If it is the latter then the motivation and rewards should reflect this.
Last edited by ryanb (2019-04-03 06:31:12)
One Hour One Life Crafting Reference
https://onetech.info/
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I feel like a major cause of the problem is that it is incredibly difficult to keep track of family members. It's difficult to feel like part of a family if you don't know where or who your family members are. It's completely impractical for a mother to care for her child after the age of three because you would have to constantly follow them around in order to know where they are and if they need help.
I think that if you want people to be able to get attached to a family in only an hour, you would need to give some in-game help. Something like a part of the UI that tells you where your family members are, or alerts when someone is about to die. I think if you remind players that their family exists, it will make them care more. As it is, when someone isn't on the same screen as you, they might as well not exist.
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I feel like a major cause of the problem is that it is incredibly difficult to keep track of family members. It's difficult to feel like part of a family if you don't know where or who your family members are. It's completely impractical for a mother to care for her child after the age of three because you would have to constantly follow them around in order to know where they are and if they need help.
I think that if you want people to be able to get attached to a family in only an hour, you would need to give some in-game help. Something like a part of the UI that tells you where your family members are, or alerts when someone is about to die. I think if you remind players that their family exists, it will make them care more. As it is, when someone isn't on the same screen as you, they might as well not exist.
I do think that with more diverse clothing it will be easier to distinguish your family members. When everyone looks different i can actually tell and say hello when its my son helping me at the bakery in the feather hat and fruitboot I gave him. I also get sad when I find my moms bones i would have never otherwise seen if it wasn't for her one red shoe
--Grim
I'm flying high. But the worst is never first, and there's a person that'll set you straight. Cancelling the force within my brain. For flying high. The simulator has been disengaged.
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I think if you want the game to be more about the importance of family, like IMMEDIATE family, you need to allow the creation of actual family units. Mother, father, children.
Right now, we have magic sky babies which drop out of women without warning. Half the population is male and only has a direct connection to their mother and siblings. The other half are female and get to look forward to a constant stream of suicide babies and random players who have no reason to stick around once they grow hair. Eve camps have the closest thing to a true "Family" vibe. Everyone is part of the same close-knit group - mother and children. You might get to know your kids on a more personal level and they will have a good chance of knowing you. If you manage to keep the camp going, it feels like a solid personal achievement and if your children all die, it is a significant loss. But if you are born into a more advanced village, there are usually a decent number of more distant relatives - aunts, uncles, cousins. They are not strangers, but they aren't especially close to you either. And your own mother and children tend to get a little lost in the crowd.
We don't have homes in OHOL. We don't have family units. It is rare for me to spend time working directly with my parents or siblings in a large town. There are relatively few tasks that are improved by working with a partner and, most of the time, I'm not interested in following in my mother's footsteps by learning her trade (assuming she even has one). I'm thinking there should be a way to form partnerships with other players. So a mother and a father can raise children together as a real family. I know this has been proposed before, but I'm going to say it again .. Marriage. If you want people to care about their LIFE instead of their lineage, you need to make that ONE LIFE have meaning and value. We could use with more QoL updates.
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One hour is a very short time to develop relationships. And if it's hard to survive, less time is spent on getting to know your family and more time is spent on doing the chores that brings food on the table.
Relationships need time to build. They come from time to talk. Time to give gifts. Time to teach. Time to do things together.
I truly believe that if survival was easier - if ropes were more accessible, if the bushes didn't need all that watering, if sheep ate less berries, if a sweater didn't need that much wool, if there were other and simpler ways to make backpacks even if the simpler version had smaller carrying capacity, if there were baby carrying devices so we could do things with the baby - then lineages would be longer and people would have time to care more about their families.
Last edited by CatX (2019-04-03 07:20:47)
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so ok, i came up with a game changing idea surrounding caring
- - -
a life of an Eve has to matter
atm it is as unimportant as every female life
a life as an Eve has to matter to the player being an Eve
& a life of every Eve has to matter to every player
if those goals are not met then nothing will help
because only an Eve can start a family ***
how can a life as an Eve matter to the player being an Eve ?
new idea : A TOWN's NAME
the options to live for every player :
* an Eve
* a town's name
* a family name
* consequent lives
round 1 :
-an Eve should be the only one who names a town, a place with a special marker
-the town's name is solidified to stay only if its founding Eve survived to 60, otherwise it is wiped clean
-players born to an Eve with a named town are only those who have already named a town successfully themselves
* this will be the quality of players initiation test *
-every player has at first to have a successful solo run as childless Eve, without any descendants & live till 60 to be able to found a town at all
-after a player manages that life, the town founded stays as a place on the map, it has to have an Eve's marker, a special marker recognizable as an Eve's town
-every player is able to have only one town named at the same time, either that town stays & the founding player can be born to another player that way or they have to found a town successfully first
-this will make every player trully care for what the player is playing
-it will punish every player who hasn't been able to live to 60 while naming a town with a childless rebirth as Eve, over & over again
-being a founding Eve will be the initial test to be able to play something else than that, the Eve's initiation
-players born to an Eve with a named town, who has passed that initiation test are only those who themselves have already named a town successfully, who have themselves passed that test as well
-this will make every such player care for that very spot, for that very town, because named themselves & it will probably inspire some real drama subsequently later on, if a player who was a founding Eve reveals themselves as living there again
(months ago i had the fortune to live very few lives in that sense, those were very memorable but the occurance was random at that time, didn't really belong to any certain gameplay
i am also meeting players in game still, who care for the founding Eve, so that initiation thing is real gameplay content already now
with my ideas here it would include way more commitment of the players than we have now
i am not sure how it will change the griefing situation, but it probably will significantly, since a player can choose to not participate in building a town founded by some other player but disrupt its thriving instead, but there will be one additional positive option to mitigate that in round 3)
round 2 :
-the first life after passing the initiation test is to be born to that exact spot of the own town as Eve again but now with the option to have kids
-as is now already, only an Eve can found a family & give that family a name
-that family name depends on successful life of other players carrying on with the name, as it is already now
-after that second life as Eve, every such player is born either to another such player as Eve's child, as females child or again as Eve, able to found another family
-so - per Eve only one town, but many families possible
-that way every such player can be born only to an existing town
-after that second Eve's life the following lives will be as they are now, randomly born as whatever & whereever
round 3 :
-a player who named a town as Eve, if born to that exact spot, to that town again, has the option to remove that town's name
-that town becomes available to be named new
-the player themselves will be born after that life into a fresh spot as Eve & will be able to beginn the cycle with round 1 again
-the nameless town can be named again only if several residents agree, make it at least 6 maybe
-this will make players who named a town that way care for that very spot, for that very town !!!
this time around it will be more than only one player, it will be already a group of players
-a town named that communal way will have a different marker than the marker a town gets if named by an Eve
round 4 :
-an apocalypse can still wipe ALL town's names clean on a server
-an apocalypse will get that way some real drama input, i am hoping for really mean players, who orchestrate now an apocalypse which removes lots of effort of other players & which in return will motivate players, who don't want to have their town's names removed actually FIGHT against
- - -
***
i was yesterday an Eve, i tried but i am pretty tired meantime with the meaningless effort to be an Eve AT ALL
an Eve's life is hard & what's the reward ? the family's name will be wiped out probably by some noob players who are randomly born as the only female or by some players who grief for kicks or cause they are disorientated what this game is about at all or just because they have half an hour before their lunch to cause trouble
i was born in a thankless spot, more wolves, boars & bear caves after running aimlessly for 20 minutes than berry bushes or banana trees
i had 4 kids, maybe one survived, the son, as always, but so what ? who cares ? not even i do & i was the founding Eve
- - -
thoughts ?
- - -
Last edited by breezeknight (2019-04-03 07:38:56)
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One thing that changed the way people played was the stats that Whatever produced. Your game will never be real life, but it's a game. People will always want to buff their stats in a game, or get achievements. Stop trying to replicate real life and do some gamification.
Eg.
water 100, 10,000, 100,000 berry bushes. have 1000 children live to 55. have your eve line last 50 generations. Kill a bear. Be killed by a bear. Be sacrificed to a nosaj.
give people things to aim for beyond the single life.
Last edited by ruanna (2019-04-03 08:04:34)
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I'd had an undeveloped thought about improving the parent/child dynamic that's special to this game.
Something along the lines of "I'm proud of you (child)" or "Thank you (parent)"
Would the emergent parenting strategy be to withhold those statements until earned, or send them unconditionally?
maybe allow them to have some in-game effect (curse buffer?)
Despite those examples being superficial (I've only been a child, myself),
add something that represents the understanding of the irl parent/child dynamic. You're a parent; give your game a taste of that feeling.
Morality is the interpretation of what is best for the well-being of humankind.
List of Guides | Resources per Food | Yum? | Temperature | Crafting Info: https://onetech.info
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I'm also perplexed that there have been no extremely long or even eternal family lines. 288 is the record, on a less-populated server, and 11 months ago. The usual weekly record never tops 80. That's 19 hours, and is impressive, but.... it's clear to me that it's just not important enough to anyone. I envisioned people hopping on discord during desperate times and trying to recruit players to keep the flame burning through the night.
Many reasons really.
1. General boredom, Towns become too easy soon after building newcoman technology. Most people don't really build combustion engines and kerosene technology, Because it's not useful currently.
2. Bad RNG and low pop. Many kids /die in cities so it becomes increasingly difficult to maintain a family line, This ties into the first reason. Eventually, you just don't get any girls willing to stay.
3. Griefing is targetted mostly in cities. Griefers love to wipe out big towns, The troll management eventually becomes too much.
"I came in shitting myself and I'll go out shitting myself"
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Towns are dying not because of lack of incentive but because the area ban and the birth allocation (based on yum/warmth) conspire to make a town banned from most of the community after a certain point.
Last edited by Thaulos (2019-04-03 11:19:44)
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--One Eve on a server, ever... after the family dies out, the server is wiped. Death of a family = death of the world. Everyone clustered around (0,0), just like the old days, but to keep that sprawling civ going, some baby needs to survive. Big problem with Eve getting overrun by babies at the start. Maybe excess players are spawned nearby as Adams in the beginning.
I personally really like this idea.
--Really crazy: What if you only got ONE LIFE each hour. Gosh, how this would change the game dramatically in so many ways. If you lived to 60 each time, you could play continuously. But if you ever died early, you'd spend the rest of the hour cooling off. Goodbye baby suicide. Every baby would indeed be precious to both the mother and the baby. Also goodbye to my financial success.
I agree with everything said here very much. The last part literally made me LOL.
Believe you're right, but don't believe you can't be wrong.
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Days peppers/onions/tomatoes left unfixed: 120
Do your part and remind Jason to fix these damn vegetables.
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95% of family extinctions are due to RNG not giving baby girls.
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I like the gamey versions...but like tarr i think they'd get boring. But I would like to see an attempt at them regardless they'll be good fun every so often.
And on making people really care.
Well like in real life, people don't care about people just because they share a surname. They care because they make a bond. Make caring about others more lucrative, make caring for your imediate family more rewarding.
Implement life/gene karma? If you toss a baby at a mosquito or bear or wolf or stab it you get some points to count up % to gain 'inborn malfunctions' in your next life...like say... Deafness, shortsightedness, crooked limbs, crippling disabilities. This should not count for die babies or babies that were running while dying or far from the mother maybe. ? Should get neg gene karma fir suiciding I think.
Maybe get + points for how much your own descendants flourish in the game, how much high tech they/you craft etc. And you get small boons like shock resistance, slightly faster speed, a slightly larger view plane, slightly slower hunger rate...
You know, small things that add up.
Also im one of those people that play 1-3 lives on a weekend lol. I can definitely say there probably is at least one life I can go hell on explaining.
Last edited by Amon (2019-04-03 12:30:59)
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I'm not really a fan of the 'randomly limited tech' idea, but I wonder if tech-as-reward might be a thing? Maybe anyone who has lived to 60 in the longest family line of a given week, then in the next week if they are an eve, that new line has access to special tech of some kind (or even my afore-suggested extended life)? It could be just superficial luxury, or a minor bonus, or something more major. This would theoretically make any given life important to try to live to 60 (in case that family is the longest of the week), but also would make you want to try and make sure that family line lives the longest? I mean it wouldn't necessarily be a huge motivator, but when it comes to game rewards usually people don't need huge ones I think. You could even tier it, so that if a family with the 'special' power is also longest lived this week, they get another, higher tier reward next week? I also don't think it would really do too much in terms of improving immediate family dynamics. I mean you only have one hour, there's really just not a chance to form a 'real' connection in that time I think.
I'm also perplexed that there have been no extremely long or even eternal family lines. 288 is the record, on a less-populated server, and 11 months ago. The usual weekly record never tops 80. That's 19 hours, and is impressive, but.... it's clear to me that it's just not important enough to anyone. I envisioned people hopping on discord during desperate times and trying to recruit players to keep the flame burning through the night.
I'm pretty sure that basically comes down to irl sleep cycles. I would guess (and this is just a guess) that the majority of your active players are North American, with a smaller number of Europeans, and fewest asians. So when North American and Europe are asleep, the overall population declines too much, and towns start dying. Plus griefers and boredom, as mentioned before. My main suggestion there would be to improve the game more, to attract a larger player base. Maybe address some of the things that lots of people request repeatedly, like more storage variety, and a tiered iron access tech tree. The game just feels so Flintstone-like right now; a primitive base lifestyle with cartoonish cars and airplanes tacked on (though not dinsoaur-powered in this case).
Once you had a more solid playerbase, I think you could experiment more with some of those ideas. But I feel like making some of those changes wholesale now would be pretty risky. Except the leaderboard, that could be done now of course.
Last edited by Redram (2019-04-03 14:43:09)
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Like the idea of each family name being unique!
I don't think population drop is the central cause:
https://steamcharts.com/app/595690
This doesn't show off-Steam players. It never really drops below 60 people. That's a lot of people. Enough for at least 3 towns to survive through the night.
I'm wondering if it's really the area ban that's the problem...
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I love the idea of certain tech that is unlocked as a reward, it could be purely cosmetic such as special clothing. It would make these items rare and give the player who wears them some credibility and uniqueness.
One Hour One Life Crafting Reference
https://onetech.info/
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Here's where the Founds family lost its name:
http://lineage.onehouronelife.com/serve … id=3919143
I guess I will finally fix this. Your last name will be remembered, and passed to your children, if you name them, even if you don't have a name yourself.
Founds family lasted 33 hours. So they survived through the night one time. They ended at 4am PST (7am EST) on a Thursday.
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One Eve on a server, ever... after the family dies out, the server is wiped. Death of a family = death of the world. Everyone clustered around (0,0), just like the old days, but to keep that sprawling civ going, some baby needs to survive. Big problem with Eve getting overrun by babies at the start. Maybe excess players are spawned nearby as Adams in the beginning.
--Two Eves on a server, with visually distinct family lines. Players are divided at random between one of these two families randomly, and permanently. When one family goes extinct, the other family "wins", and the server is wiped to start the whole process over again
I really like these ideas!
Be kind, generous, and work together my potatoes.
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I'm wondering if it's really the area ban that's the problem...
I think changing the ban timer from play time to real time would be a big step by itself. Unless I'm mistaken, the ban timer is two hours, right? That means if a person plays one life every day, they can't go back to their Monday town until their play session two days later, on Thursday. And that is only if their Tuesday and Wednesday lives were both old age deaths, otherwise they'd have to wait until Friday.
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