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The Walking Dead Season 2 SPOILERS Thread!

I'm kind of interested in how they wrap up this season, as they have to know that a lot of gamers are like me and plan on movning on to current gen systems for the next go around.

Do they have a way to import choices from 360/PS3 to X1/PS4? Will they just give it a firm ending so Season 3 starts with the exact same scenarios for everyone regardless of how the first two played out? Do they just wrap up these characters and focus on new ones in season 3?

I guess they could just do like Bioware is with Dragon Age Inquisition and building in a thing where people can pick the choices from the first two.
 
No, it wasn't her or Jane. Even if you let Jane down to try to save Sarah, Sarah still dies and Jane still survives. This episode more than anything else Telltale has done has the most useless decisions ever. No heavy decision mattered at all in the end.
I was very disappointed with the writing in this episode.

1. I've been playing very Shane-esque for this entire season (basically, my decisions as Clem have been very much geared towards "survival first"). So, I've always treated Sarah as expendable and a liability and have made the bare minimum amount of choices that would constitute me considering her a friend or that I want her around. Despite all of this, Telltale really wanted me to convince Sarah to come with us ("..." being the only dissenting choice I got, because I didn't want her to come along). And then after leaving her behind, Clem acts really sad about it and Luke/Jane are comforting her despite having made no decisions in prior episodes that would indicate we were at all close. This really hurt the episode for me.

2. Kenny yells at you like a madman after Sarita is bit (turns out this happens no matter what you do in the last episode). OK, fine. Then, later on Bonnie asks you to go talk to Kenny and there's no dialogue tree whatsover, you just go ahead and do it, no resistance. It's like the earlier scene where Kenny berates you never happened. I'll just walk right in there and talk to Kenny again, sounds like a great idea.

3. Strong, street-smart and survival-focused Jane is down scoping out the gift shop for "a while", but doesn't think to start picking the lock until you show up and suggest it. Had that very "video-game-y" moment where everyone's life is seemingly on hold until you make a decision for them.

4. The whole sequence of keeping the painkillers or giving them back to Arvo has become so played out by this point. I kept them knowing full well that this decision wouldn't matter, and sure enough...very predictable. At this point, recycling entire decisions from Season 1 causes them to lose a lot of their impact. Everything about this entire scene was way too transparent.

It's too bad, because it was an overall very entertaining episode that had some great moments, but it was maybe Telltale's weakest effort thus far from a writing standpoint.
 
So who do people think are going to survive the ending shootout? I really think it's just going to be Clem and the baby and that's it. (Which is sad, I sort of liked Luke and I can't hate Kenny.)
 
Season 1 of TWD was more on rails than TWAU or TWD S2. You just didn't realize it then. TWAU is the least railed since you can decide in several episodes what places to investigate first, which while not changing the plot itself, changes a lot about how stuff plays out.

But look, most adventure games of old are onrails by that definition, I just want to have some freedom of at least investigating/exploring instead of just pressing 1/2/3/4 in each dialog chance.

That sounds good though
 
So who do people think are going to survive the ending shootout? I really think it's just going to be Clem and the baby and that's it. (Which is sad, I sort of liked Luke and I can't hate Kenny.)

I'm fully expecting the gunfire you hear at the end of the episode to be directed at oncoming walkers who were attracted by the initial gunfire. Nobody killed (at least, not by that gunshot).
 
Calling it: End of the season will be Clem, Kenny, and baby. Kenny having found a reason to live via the baby. They all go wandering off into the sunset.

If Telltale wants to be incredibly brutal the final choice will be Clem having to save either Kenny or the baby.
 
So who do people think are going to survive the ending shootout? I really think it's just going to be Clem and the baby and that's it. (Which is sad, I sort of liked Luke and I can't hate Kenny.)

There's no way Kenny is going to die like that after everything he's been through. I don't think he'll survive the epispde though.
 
None of the big decisions ever mattered. I don't understand how we are 25 hours into this series and people are still complaining that their decisions don't radically affect the story. By now you should know what you are getting into. At some point you either have to accept it or give up. It's not suddenly going to turn into a Choose-Your-Own-Adventure story.

But that's not what I'm saying. I don't want it to be choose your own adventure. But take TWAU for example. The decisions made impact where the game goes next and how the other characters act and react. In this episode, no matter what you do with Sarah, she dies and is considered a lost cause. No matter what you do to Arvo, you get accused of stealing. No matter what you do with Rebecca, she still gets shot and everyone starts firing. All of these things have such short turnaround that it makes them seem entirely inconsequential, and to say every other TT game decision is inconsequential is an absolute lie. There are varying degrees of decisions mattering. It doesn't have to be either "choose your own adventure" or completely scripted. Other TT games/episodes have found the middle ground, this episode doesn't even come close.
 
Whether or not you steal the medicine from Arvo, you still steal his gun - something arguably more important than medicine in The Walking Dead. I'm not sure why that seems to fly over everyone's head.

It didn't fly over my head, but that whole scene they specifically focus on the medicine. The decisions they ask you to make are about the medicine.

And yeah, it's not about "subtle" story telling or whatever - I get that, but it's a game about decision-making. Why have a consequence about a decision that was never made?

I don't really care either way, I liked the episode, but it was just weird. If it was a bout the gun he should've just said. Whatever the case, the story telling should have made it more clear so the players aren't left standing and going "wtf?!", which clearly some of us are.

It makes more sense that arvo was actually stealing and blaming us for it. But that seems a bit unclear too. Whatever happens I'm giving the game the benefit of the doubt that it will clear up then.
 
But that's not what I'm saying. I don't want it to be choose your own adventure. But take TWAU for example. The decisions made impact where the game goes next and how the other characters act and react. In this episode, no matter what you do with Sarah, she dies and is considered a lost cause. No matter what you do to Arvo, you get accused of stealing. No matter what you do with Rebecca, she still gets shot and everyone starts firing. All of these things have such short turnaround that it makes them seem entirely inconsequential, and to say every other TT game decision is inconsequential is an absolute lie. There are varying degrees of decisions mattering. It doesn't have to be either "choose your own adventure" or completely scripted. Other TT games/episodes have found the middle ground, this episode doesn't even come close.

I only ply the story for that. In my opinion the game isn't about giving you a choice that changes the outcome, but the illusion of it.

It's not a game about the outcomes of your decisions but the decisions themselves. For me, the actual choices I make are a reflection of me and make me think about what decision I ultimately chose. Like in real life, I question the decision and wonder if I made the right choice, etc. it doesn't matter to me if the other choice invariable ends up the same so long as it FEELS like the outcome may have been different.

For example, after shooting Rebecca, I felt like crap having 1) killed her and 2) having instigated the firefight. I had going in my head an "oh no, that was dumb of me" though for a little while after.

I okay these games to get that emotional connection. I think people who complain that the choices don't actually change anything are sort of kissing the point. I do get that the illusion may be broken on how it handles it, like using he same animations for Kenny in the tent and stuff, so yeah I'll admit some of it does seem to be handled pretty poorly.
 
Overall, there's something off with Season 2. It doesn't feel like there is a central plot or underlying story theme. Every episode is like "ok now some random, bad things will happen and we'll kill off Characters X,Y,Z" without any consequence. I remember feeling shocked with every single death in Season 1, I really digged the relationship between Lee and Clementine, I felt really torn by the choices I had to make and I remember various memorable events: the cannibals' farm, the woman you're trying to save but commits suicide, the boy's death followed by his mother's suicide, the sudden murder of the woman by this other woman (I don't remember their names...), Crawford, Molly, the search for Clementine's parents, the stalker, Lee getting bitten... Now it's just random things happening with no real impact on me. I really liked Episode 2 at the mountain resort, the new characters and the premise of them being hunted by Carver, but Episode 3 felt like a waste to me and a copy of the TV show with the Governor etc. Now most of the new characters have died and I hardly cared. I liked the kind gay guy who died in Episode 2 and Sarah's father but they both died without having the time to develop as characters.
 
People just keep dying left an right, and not in a "It's the zombie apocalypse, everyone's on borrowed time and could get taken out when you least expect it," way but a "We only wrote the first third of this character's arc, have no idea where to go with it and need a way to get rid of them" sort of way, with a little "look one of the characters designed to be expendable so that people could die died! Isn't it SAD!?" sprinkled on top.

Walter and Matthew seemed like they would have been great characters, with all sorts of depth and backstory to explore, but Matthew lasts one short conversation and Walter automatically gets Drama'd by Carver maybe 45 minutes after he was introduced in the first place.

Carver gets played up for 2 episodes as the season's Big Bad, but once you're actually at his settlement the conflict feels like it doesn't really have anywhere else to go and he and the "survivor community" subplots are over by the end of Episode 3. We never even actually got the full story on why/how the group ran from Carver in the first place. Who did Alvin kill? Why? Well he and Rebecca are both dead now, and they never told us.

Carlos went down unexpectedly, but I actually spent a lot of that scene wondering why nobody was getting hit by gunfire or confused for walkers, so it didn't bother me too badly. What *did* bother me was how Sarah immediately ran for it and apparently made it long enough to find Luke and Nick. That was actually pretty good in a clutch like that. So how come after supporting her all season, showing her how to use a gun, giving her tips and advice and tough love as needed she just shuts down? It's like she existed just so Telltale could be heartbreaking and edgy by having a "kid" die on screen, and so that Jane's loner monologues this episode would sound more relatable.
 
Season 1 of TWD was more on rails than TWAU or TWD S2. You just didn't realize it then. TWAU is the least railed since you can decide in several episodes what places to investigate first, which while not changing the plot itself, changes a lot about how stuff plays out.

You are right, but I think that they also did a better job of concealing the rails. The Doug vs Carley choice ultimately gets you to the exact same spot. But you get 1 1/2 episodes of time and experience with person you save. It doesn't change the plot, but it had a big impact on the feel and relationships you build in the game.
 
People complaining about Alvo saying you stole from him (even if you didn't) are missing something.

He was trying to hide the meds from his Russian friends.

Why would he want to stick them in a random trash can? Why not take them back to his group?

After he leaves you (with the meds) he hides them somewhere else.

And then he goes back to his group and they ask "Where are the meds?" Well obviously some other group stole them.

Arvo is hiding something from his group. Perhaps an addiction? Point being, he wasn't taking those meds to his group. They were going to end up "stolen" one way or another.
 
But that's not what I'm saying. I don't want it to be choose your own adventure. But take TWAU for example. The decisions made impact where the game goes next and how the other characters act and react. In this episode, no matter what you do with Sarah, she dies and is considered a lost cause. No matter what you do to Arvo, you get accused of stealing. No matter what you do with Rebecca, she still gets shot and everyone starts firing. All of these things have such short turnaround that it makes them seem entirely inconsequential, and to say every other TT game decision is inconsequential is an absolute lie.

I didn't say "every other TellTale game is like this." I said "We are nearly 25 hours into this series," referring only to previous Walking Dead episodes.

Choice was an illusion in TWD Season 1 as well. The cruddy Arvo thing feels exactly like S1, where the Stranger kidnaps Clem regardless of whether or not you stole his food. You get funneled towards the same outcome no matter what. If you save someone's life, that means they'll be dead before the end of the next episode. In this episode it was particularly bad though -- since they had Sarah just be completely shellshocked even if you save her.....which means they wouldn't even need to write or record any additional dialogue for her before the killed her off. Seems very lazy.
 
My guess is that the entire group dies throughout episode 5 save for Clem and the baby, and she makes it to Wellington where she finds Christa, and then Christa gets to be a mother.

Though I'm sure the final decision is whether you take the baby or leave it to die.
 
I think we're to assume that she had a miscarriage. We'll likely find out what happened to Christa in the next episode, and Christa will end up taking care of Rebecca's baby.

It's Like Poetry
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Also I wish I didn't give rebecca any of the meds for pain, since she just up and dies! what a waste!
 
People complaining about Alvo saying you stole from him (even if you didn't) are missing something.

He was trying to hide the meds from his Russian friends.
[...]
Arvo is hiding something from his group. Perhaps an addiction? Point being, he wasn't taking those meds to his group. They were going to end up "stolen" one way or another.

That's totally legitimate, internally consistent story logic, but terrible gameplay logic. Don't build a whole set piece around not stealing the meds if you are planning to accuse the player of stealing the meds no matter what.
 
That's totally legitimate, internally consistent story logic, but terrible gameplay logic. Don't build a whole set piece around not stealing the meds if you are planning to accuse the player of stealing the meds no matter what.
Basically this.

It's not about "subtle" story telling. I'm fine with that, but making it unclear is quite something else.

You can do this and still have it subtle without the player havig to grasp at straws to understand. I mean, clearly a lot of people were confused.

Anyway, there does seem to be a central "theme" emerging, and that's the idea of a baby being born amidst the apocalypse. I mean it seems pretty clear now, what with all the ideas of sisterhood and stuff being presented as well, Christa being pregnant but losing the baby etc.
 
kind of took a nose dive after the last episode, and then something messed up and i couldnt get that damn tent open to talk to kenny for like 5 minutes.

when i saw arvo i thought YEAH time to get rewarded for not stealing the meds (the food car from season 1 came back to me) but fucking arvo

to top it all off i think i made the wrong decision at the end shooting rebecca - there was a ton of reaction gunfire man.

the way jane was constantly reiterating to clem about being alone, i would not be that shocked if the shootout killed every one except the baby because you know its a baby.

decent episode, pumped for the finale.
 
kind of took a nose dive after the last episode, and then something messed up and i couldnt get that damn tent open to talk to kenny for like 5 minutes.

when i saw arvo i thought YEAH time to get rewarded for not stealing the meds (the food car from season 1 came back to me) but fucking arvo

to top it all off i think i made the wrong decision at the end shooting rebecca - there was a ton of reaction gunfire man.

the way jane was constantly reiterating to clem about being alone, i would not be that shocked if the shootout killed every one except the baby because you know its a baby.

decent episode, pumped for the finale.

I am expecting the group to die off throughout the episode, but at the very least I can't see them taking out Kenny like that. He has way too much history and screen presence in the game to essentially die in an offscreen fight like that.
 
I hope the ending is just Clementine on her own walking off into the sunset. After the credits show a short scene ten years later with an older Clementine as the most badass survivor to walk the earth.
 
I'd have to assume at the very least that Luke and Kenny will survive the shootout along with Clem and the baby. They've spent so much time playing those two against one another that it'll have to reach some sort of resolution outside of one or both of them just getting mowed down during the firefight.

Like a few others I am bummed about Sarah getting offed regardless of how hard you try to keep her alive, but much like Ben from the first season, sometimes keeping the weakest link alive just delays the inevitable, like Jane talks about during your various conversations about her sister.

I approach these Telltale offerings as one-off stories that I'm helping to set in stone as I go. When you start to hear other people talk about their differing choices and how little they changed the overall outcome, that's when the annoyance sets in over the limitation of what Telltale seems to be able to produce each episode. Like the first season I'm going to to just look at the way my path through the episodes went and that's how the story went. Lee is always going to have said what he said to Clementine at the end Episode 5, regardless of what other options are out there. Its the only way I've been able to temper my own annoyances with the lack of variance in each episode's decisions and their eventual outcome.
 
Unspoilerino'd thoughts:

- I didn't even realize cutting off Sarita's arm was a choice last ep, went with my gut and took the walker. Was none too pleased with Kenny blaming me for that mess. Fuck you too, buddy.
- Left Sarah behind in the trailer. Not about making people live against their will, particularly when other lives hang in the balance.
- Don't trust either Kenny or Luke, the former is no less reckless and is starting to lose his mind, the former nearly got the entire group killed to get his dick wet. Taking a fence-sitting posture like I did with Lee in season 1.
- Took the pills from Arvo. Dude drew on us. Regret not pushing to have him shot.
- Pushed to leave immediately, knowing that ze Russians knew we were shacked up there. Ran into them anyway.
- Didn't leave with Jane, but I concurred with her that the group is breaking up and that I can make it on my own. Promise to Rebecca was the only thing that kept me there. Regret not just doing it now. Group is beyond broken. It's all but dead.

If Jane shows up again and wants to take off, think I will.
 
Pressed the button to ask to go with Jane so fast I almost dropped my controller. Telltale does a really good job of getting rid of the characters that I like (the series will never recover from Lilly shooting Carly for me) and saddling me with the ones I hate.

I didn't think season 1 was anywhere near GOTY-worthy and season 2 has still been a step down. After the initial scene, the first time you get to play is by slowly checking three pockets on a walker. Riveting. Telltale, remove all non-QTE and dialog choice 'gameplay' from your games. You have slowly been doing it but just go all out, I am tired of slowly walking around a box selecting unimportant things until I cross the invisible line to push the scene forward.

There is just something inherently wrong with the premise of The Walking Dead, regardless of the medium. It is all misery, some zombie gore, some cursing, more misery, meet some assholes who put you through more shit, do stupid shit, sit around and not do smart shit (why does no one walk a bit faster when doing tasks?!), lots of self-inflicted easily avoidable misery, and just me hating most of the characters. The game is better than the show with the comics somewhere in the middle but I am very rapidly losing any desire to continue in this universe because it just hits the same miserable beats over and over again.
 
I hope the ending is just Clementine on her own walking off into the sunset. After the credits show a short scene ten years later with an older Clementine as the most badass survivor to walk the earth.

The baby is also going to survive and she will be to the baby what Lee was to her.
 
This was probably my least favorite episode. I know none of your decisions have ever made drastic changes but more and more there's not even a change in people's reactions. No matter what Clem does or says she gets the exact same response. This whole season has been pretty bad. Something that really stands out to me is that in the first season everyone wanted to be Clem's surrogate parents to the point that she had two crazed psychos obsessed with her but this season no one seems to care. Right from the beginning Christa and Omid send her off by herself without even checking to see if the building was safe. The whole situation with Sarah kind of hammers it home. Her father dies and no one steps in. If she dies at the souvenir shop no one even mentions it. Luke and Rebecca would have been in her life for quite a while yet they have no reaction to her and her father's death. That's just bad writing. Especially when they've got Kenny getting so creepy with the baby there's no reason he wouldn't have tried to be a father figure to Clem and Sarah. It's hard to understand why Clem is being treated as a helpless child by the narrative when none of the characters treat her that way. Why is she even with this group? Why are they keeping her her around? If they're not mad at her or asking a favor she may as well not exist at all. There's no bonding. In season one you've got her drawing a picture of Kenny and his family which leads to the great choice of burning it in the first episode of this season. Of course there's seemingly no pay off to that but at least it was a good way to show that she had these memories of the people she was with. What's she got to look back on with this new group? The scar from the wound she had to stitch up herself that time they locked her in a shed?

I had the thought that Jane is going to show up pregnant at some point. I hope not. She said something along the lines of, "I wouldn't bring a child into this world," and then you find her and Luke together. The whole Arvo thing is stupid. I knew the gun was important as soon as they did the terribly obvious cut to it hitting the floor and then ignored it for the rest of the episode. Jane already had a gun, why didn't Clem pick it up? She even had bullets! Why didn't anybody pick it up? At least then Arvo could have pointed and said, "See, they've got my gun!" and it wouldn't be another case of someone reacting exactly the same regardless of Clem's actions. Things like that really aggravate me in this game. There have been a few times where a weapon is completely ignored and then would have been quite useful shortly thereafter. If you don't want me using a weapon don't write my character as a moron, write them as someone who never had access to that weapon.
 
When I saved Sarah I figured that she would be spending the rest of the episode sitting in a corner so she wouldn't interfere too much.
And in the end they killed her anyway, even making your decision to risk Jane's life completely inconsequential. It would've been better if they had died both if you decided to take the risk.
Up until now I wasn't too bothered with the lack of consequence in these games but this episode makes it too obvious.
They should drop TWD, finish Clem's story and call it a day. Wolf felt fresh to me but in this I've been getting a "been there, done that" feeling almost constantly.
 
I hope the ending is just Clementine on her own walking off into the sunset. After the credits show a short scene ten years later with an older Clementine as the most badass survivor to walk the earth.

After 10 years wouldn't all the walkers be totally decomposed and no more threat
 
After 10 years wouldn't all the walkers be totally decomposed and no more threat

Well, as long as there are people there will be new walkers but at the rate they're going I dunno, either everyone is dead or some people will have managed to hold on long enough to outlive the threat.
 
That's assuming that absolutely no one on the planet dies or is bitten within those 10 years

Well, seeing as there is only a tiny fraction of the population left this won't be much of a problem compared to the ubiquitous threat they present at the time portrayed.
 
Well, seeing as there is only a tiny fraction of the population left this won't be much of a problem compared to the ubiquitous threat they present at the time portrayed.

I suppose Humans can't rebuild society though, eventually someone would turn and kill everyone else.
 
Of course not. You think they'd make 2 completely different episode 5s?
That would actually be very cool, it can download whichever one based in your current save. Or just make it double size. Of course maybe you can all meet up again, but for a brief moment...

Anyway, people who say that they develop characters and plot threads that go nowhere are kind of missing part of the point about this game. I get story telling and all, but walking dead has always presented itself with out-of-nowhere deaths even upon build up. That's kind of the point of the series. That it's the end of the world and it can be the end for anyone anytime. If it were predictable over who does based on how much development, then people would complain just as much.
 
So, even if we cut Kenny's new waifu's arm she still die... because out choices truly matter! :P

Jokes aside, I really enjoyed this episode. It felt on the same vein as S1, more focused on the group dynamic rather than the badly written not-Nazi stuff from ep. III and the "badass" Clementine. The writing still has problems, everyone relies too easily on the 10 (?) years old little girl, but it didn't feel silly like ep. III, mostly because it was just Clem and Jane most of the times.

I know people hate Rebecca, but she felt like one the most fleshed-out characters of the season.

Also Nick's death was bullshit. All these efforts to save him in ep 2-3 and he dies off-screen? That's horseshit Telltale and you know it.
 
When I saved Sarah I figured that she would be spending the rest of the episode sitting in a corner so she wouldn't interfere too much.
And in the end they killed her anyway, even making your decision to risk Jane's life completely inconsequential. It would've been better if they had died both if you decided to take the risk.
Up until now I wasn't too bothered with the lack of consequence in these games but this episode makes it too obvious.
They should drop TWD, finish Clem's story and call it a day. Wolf felt fresh to me but in this I've been getting a "been there, done that" feeling almost constantly.

That would've been cool, assuming ahe was going to leave anyway. Like if you had Sarah die earlier or if you didn't get jane to try save her, she leaves. If you save Sarah and the have Jane try to save her again, Jane dies.

It would be a stark lesson over what Jane teaches you about survival, the inevitable, and so on. Like your persistence at trying to save a deadweight cost someone their lives. And then that would make any ultimate decision about the baby to be that much more poignant.

It would be cool, and not that much more effort assuming Jane is out of the picture either way. But yeah, that's an assumption considering we don't know if Jane will come back or not for episode 5, or even later series. We should really talk about "what could have been" without seeing the season to its conclusion first.
 
But look, most adventure games of old are onrails by that definition, I just want to have some freedom of at least investigating/exploring instead of just pressing 1/2/3/4 in each dialog chance.

That sounds good though

Well, you get choices in investigating order (or who you arrest when two guys are bolting), which changes what hints you learn and when about the ongoing plot behind the scenes, though the actual investigating is... well you get patted on the head for putting 1+1 together most of the time.
TWD S1 had the most puzzles though, I'll give it that, even if they were more about "what order do I use these in".
 
So, even if we cut Kenny's new waifu's arm she still die... because out choices truly matter! :P

Jokes aside, I really enjoyed this episode. It felt on the same vein as S1, more focused on the group dynamic rather than the badly written not-Nazi stuff from ep. III and the "badass" Clementine. The writing still has problems, everyone relies too easily on the 10 (?) years old little girl, but it didn't feel silly like ep. III, mostly because it was just Clem and Jane most of the times.

I know people hate Rebecca, but she felt like one the most fleshed-out characters of the season.

Also Nick's death was bullshit. All these efforts to save him in ep 2-3 and he dies off-screen? That's horseshit Telltale and you know it.

I really liked Rebecca, she went from a complete bitch in episode 1 to one of my favorites by the end.
I laughed when I saw Nick, I was surprised when he didn't die in 3 but him having no lines in 4 explains that a bit more.
 
So wait, Rebecca died of exhaustion? Blood loss? Hope they make this evident.

I am sad Jane left. But this lone wolf bullshit is tiring, what is the point of surviving if you're just... Surviving?
 
So wait, Rebecca died of exhaustion? Blood loss? Hope they make this evident.

I am sad Jane left. But this lone wolf bullshit is tiring, what is the point of surviving if you're just... Surviving?
But that is what everyone is doing. No one seems to enjoy the company of others so you might has well not deal with all the bullshit.

It's also the major issue for the series, for me, going forward. There has to be a point to all of this and there just isn't right now and I don't know if there will ever be.
 
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