Project Lore

Patch 3.1 introduced arena season 6. While PvP will likely get a large makeover in 3.2 and the number of arena players is at an all-time low, it isn't difficult to get some good PvP gear to jump into the fray if you are so inclined. The most successful PvP outlets are Lake Wintergrasp and the five battlegrounds, which award large amounts of honor. Players can also now convert arena points to honor by purchasing Commendation of Bravery for 100 (arena points, or AP), awarding 2,000 honor (and allowing you to get a head start in honor between seasons). Any team that plays 10 games a week gets arena points regardless of their rating. For teams below 1500, a 2v2 team will get 261 AP, a 3v3 will get 303 AP, and a 5v5 will get 344 AP. If you are just going for honor rewards, that is the equivalent of 5220, 6060, or 6880 honor respectively. That's a lot of honor for just playing 10 games! Below is the complete list of rewards from honor and arena and their cost. We earlier speculated about this list; this one is the correct and complete one for 3.0.8 and presumably the rest of season 6 and 3.1. Arena required denotes Arena Points, Honor designates Honor Points, Archavon/Emalon designates that those pieces drop from them, and Option Two lists a second exchange rate for some items. Rating is required only if bought with arena/honor/badges. This list does not include gear bought with badges. Later, we will look at the PvP gear available from Wintergrasp.

Item	Honor Required	Rating Required	Arena Required	Archavon Normal	Archavon Heroic	Emalon Normal	Emalon Heroic	Option Two: Honor	Option Two: Arena
Deadly Gladiator’s Wrists	31600	0	0			Yes
Hateful Gladiator’s Gloves	31600	0	0	Yes				7200	200
Hateful Gladiator’s Shoulders	31600	0	0					9600	275
Deadly Gladiator’s Necklace	38000	0	0			Yes
Deadly Gladiator’s Cloak	38000	0	0			Yes
Deadly Gladiator’s Ring	38000	0	0			Yes
Deadly Gladiator’s Belt	49600	0	0			Yes
Deadly Gladiator’s Boots	49600	0	0			Yes
Deadly Gladiator’s Battlemaster Trinket*	49600	0	0
Hateful Gladiator’s Legs	49600	0	0	Yes				12000	350
Hateful Gladiator’s Tunic	49600	0	0	Yes				12000	350
Hateful Gladiator’s Helm	49600	0	0					12000	350
Deadly Gladiator’s Idol/Libram/etc**	6400	1250	350
Deadly Gladiator’s Gloves	7200	1300	400		Yes
Deadly Gladiator’s Legs	12000	1350	700		Yes
Deadly Gladiator’s Tunic	12000	1400	700		Yes
Furious Gladiator’s Wrists	39400	1400	0				Yes
Deadly Gladiator’s Helm	12000	1450	700
Furious Gladiator’s Belt	62000	1450	0				Yes
Deadly Gladiator’s Shoulders	9600	1500	550
Furious Gladiator’s Boots	62000	1500	0				Yes
Furious Gladiator’s Necklace	47400	1550	0				Yes
Furious Gladiator’s Gloves	0	1600	1300				Yes
Furious Gladiator’s Rings	47400	1650	0				Yes
Furious Gladiator’s Legs	0	1700	2150				Yes
Furious Gladiator’s Tunic	0	1750	2150
Furious Gladiator’s Trinket	62000	1800	0
Furious Gladiator’s Offhand	0	1850	1100
Furious Gladiator’s One-hand Weapons (tier 1)**	35000	1850	1200
Furious Gladiator’s Two-hand/Range Weapons (tier 1)**	50000	1850	1400
Furious Gladiator’s Helm	0	1900	2150
Furious Gladiator’s Thrown/Wand/Idol/etc	0	1950	1150
Furious Gladiator’s Shield	0	1950	1950
Furious Gladiator’s Cloak	47400	2000	0				Yes
Furious Gladiator’s Shoulders	0	2050	1750
Furious Gladiator’s Tabard	0	2300	500
Furious Gladiator’s One-hand Weapons (tier 2)***	35000	2350	3000
Furious Gladiator’s Two-hand/Range Weapons (tier 2)***	50000	2350	4250

*designates iLevel 213 items from this list **designates iLevel 232 weapons from this list ***designates iLevel 239 weapons from this list What PvP rewards are you picking up these season? What image should I use for PvP articles; I'm as tired of Murkimus as you are. Make or link one in the comments and maybe you'll see it on the next post!

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The Argent Tournament has become my first destination when I log on every day. The reputation with both the Sunreavers and the Argent Crusade is easy, the gold is insane for the amount of time invested, and there are all the cool mounts and pets to pick up. We've already discussed the dailies and goals of an Argent Tournament participant, but there are a few things you might want to be aware of when you make the trip to the far reaches of Icecrown every day. First up, its important to note that there are some daily quests available that are much quicker than the others, and there are some that just don't have as high a reward. If you are going for any of the pets, mounts, or most rewards, you probably want to get as many Champion's Seals per day as possible. This means doing Battle Before the Citadel, Taking Battle to the Enemy, Among the Champions, and Threat from Above for a total of 5 seals a day. However, while you are doing Battle Before the Citadel and Taking Battle to the Enemy, the same mobs you are killing are also the objectives of the valiant's dailies, A Valiant's Field Training and At the Enemy's Gates. These are, in fact, the only Argent Tournament dailies I do! It shouldn't be difficult to see why the goblin's quests, A Chip Off the Ulduar Block and Jack Me Some Lumber, are pointless. They require you to travel far and reward nothing but the standard 13 gold and 23 silver. At that rate, you might as well do dailies that reward reputation as well, such as the Sons of Hodir, Oracles, Frenzyheart, or Kalu'ak dailies. Contributin' to the Cause is not worth doing because it costs you gold and only rewards Argent Crusade reputation. If you do the other dailies for a couple weeks, you will quickly hit exalted with the Argent Crusade and will have wasted all that donated gold! As for the other valiant's quests, consider this: if you want all of the mounts and/or all of the pets, you will be doing a lot of these dailies. In fact, just the pets and the hippogryph will run you 450 seals, which is 90 days! Since getting the Champion's Seals also gets you a couple Valiant's Seals if you do the overlapping quests, why go out of your way to do the other valiant's dailies? Unless you are in a rush to get all the titles, you might as well do dailies of another faction, as you will eventually get enough Valiant's Seals doing the champion's quests to champion all the factions anyway! The quests you are already doing will get you all the reputation you need for the Argent Crusade and the Sunreavers/Silver Covenant anyway. Additionally, after you champion all the factions, you lose the ability to pick up the valiant's quests. Since you are completing their objectives for the champions quests, losing the ability to do the valiant's quests is a severe loss of gold. Therefore, I've decided not to champion one of the factions until I'm done grinding away at my goals for the Argent Tournament. It would be a loss of hundreds, even thousands of gold. I hope Blizzard remedies this somehow, that Crusader title is sweet! Are you going to rush to get the Crusader title and do all the Argent Tournament dailies you can, or are you going to use similar moderation?

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Patch 3.1 was replete with major changes from small class mechanics to large scale raids. I have found myself appreciating the smaller changes of patch 3.1 as much as the game changing things like dual specs and Ulduar. A change that was very timely for me was the ability to take flight paths over Wintergrasp. Originally you could not fly to your faction's Wintergrasp flight point, only out of it, and thus you could not fly "through" the flight point, making flights from Dalaran to River's Heart a real pain, as you had to fly up through Icecrown and take an 8 minute tour of west Northrend just to access your Oracle or Frenzyheart dailies. Using a flying mount was right out as well, as flying mounts are not permitted in Wintergrasp. Now that you can fly to Wintergrasp, you can fly through it, making it a quick 3 minute trip on the flight path from Dalaran to River's Heart and shortening most trips significantly. I usually just use my flying mount instead of flight paths as I don't want to have to calculate where the nearest flight path is to my destination and epic flying mounts are just as fast. This major change gives me a reason to use flight paths again and saves me a lot of time. The removal of the requirement of flint and tinder to make a simple campfire is another convenient change. Instead of walking all the way back to the Sunreaver's Sanctuary in Dalaran or to a bonfire in Orgrimmar, I can simply make a fire without having to waste bag spaces on mats. It allows me to get my cooking done easily, and some people use it for the minor spirit buff to boot! Its another huge time saver. One of the most annoying thing about crossing rivers in WoW was jumping in, getting dismounted, swimming for 3 seconds, getting on the other side, and remounting. Now mounts can swim! They do so at your swim speed (unless you have the illustrious turtle), but not having to remount saves those precious few seconds when crossing rivers or lakes. Thanks Blizzard! The Argent Tournament was a major change, but giving me dailies I actually want to do in this location tied together a convenient path for effectively doing dailies. From that location in northeast Icecrown, its easy to jump to Storm Peaks for Sons of Hodir dailies or hop over to Sholazar basin for Oracle/Frenzyheart dailies. The "find this sword" daily and the fishing daily also send you to some other convenient locations that make doing dailies like the Kalu'ak ones less out of the way. It really ties together Northrend as a whole by making more locations relevant for dailies instead of a bunch of disjoint regions. Finally, polishing off those professions should be much easier now. Cooking is theoretically easier to level to 450 with more recipes giving skill-ups longer. Training that required books for fishing, first aid, and cooking now can be done at trainers, and low level fishing has been fleshed out. Stats on lower items have been adjusted, like Leatherworking's Tough Scorpid set which now gives Agility and Stamina instead of Agility and Spirit, and the Turtle Scale set which now gives stamina, intellect, and spell power instead of stamina, intellect and spirit. Materials were tweaked to make low level items easier to make. Its now much more attractive to level professions at low levels. What are your favorite "non-spotlighted" changes of patch 3.1?

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Feeling a bit down on your luck lately? Run into one too many ganks, Ulduar wipes or failed PuG runs? Perhaps it's time for you to take a break from the grind and get to know your toon's chivalrous side through the Argent Tournament. Now I know some people in our Project Lore forums have expressed skepticism about how popular the Argent Tournament will be in the long run. Others also seem enthusiastic about the idea. I, for one, love being able to kick back for some casual game play in the tourney. I've always thought that WoW has taken a new look at Azeroth as a different kind of take on medieval times. But the Argent Tournament is a bit less subtle, which I find refreshing. We don't have to dig deep to find plenty of pop-culture references that provide framework for how we visualize medieval times. You know, the romanticized, Hollywood version with valiant good guys who wield legendary weapons to defeat a corrupt and overbearing government and win over the hot (and virgin) woman. Right away for the tournament, you start quests investigating a mysterious black knight who is said to be able to defeat anyone who is unfortunate enough to meet him (I won't ruin it for anyone who hasn't started, but it's a fun quest line!) Then you'll progress into proving your jousting worth and venturing around the world to either gather various items, kill random bad guys or rescue helpless maidens (I don't think it matters whether your toon is male or female!) It all leads to more jousting until reaching Champion status and working toward buying some tournament rewards. If you want to speed through the new addition, or if you want a closer look at what you'll be getting yourself into, definitely take a look at iTZKooPA's guide to the Argent Tournament. As for me, I am thoroughly enjoying taking my time through these quests (on my husband's main, haha, I'm still leveling!). It makes me want to join a RP server and see what kind of fun plot lines are being worked into the already awesome tournament goodness. I definitely call the Argent Tournament a win for WoW. So what does everyone else make of the new Argent Tournament addition? Is it holding your interest, or something that you'll be over within a week or two? I'm hoping that the coliseum area continues getting built up so that it maintains a fresh feel.

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Today's extended maintenance has been going on for a while now, and was even extended an extra two hours in order to deploy a quick bug fixing patch to the servers. Hopefully once realms are actually up it will go much smoother than last week's introduction of Patch 3.1. The official patch notes for this relatively minor patch cover mostly bug fixes, but we also get a free respec! That is never a bad thing in my eyes. Full notes follow: General

• In order to address issues with the dual talent specialization system, all players will have their talents points refunded. Players who have purchased dual talent specializations will have both specializations reset. Glyphs will not be affected by this reset.

Bugs

• Characters who are not of the same race or class are once again able to view each others' professions linked in chat.
• Fixed an issue in which player and pet nameplates were appearing larger than normal.
• Thrall's throne has been adjusted back to its proper size and the base replaced. He will no longer need to defy gravity.
• Fixed an issue with a display error on druid leather helms.
• Corrected an issue for GeForce2/ATI 7 series card users that would result in critical errors for select actions in game. As a result certain projected textures, like spell effects and targeting circles, will no longer render on some terrain objects.
• Achievements
  • Corrected an issue preventing players from earning the achievement, "Storming Stormwind." Players who were not properly awarded this achievement for completing the objective should retroactively be granted completion.
• Warlock
  • Demonology
    • Fel Synergy (Rank 1): Corrected the tooltip to now display the proper healing amount.
• Dungeons and Raids
  • Caverns of Time: Culling of Stratholme
    • Fixed an issue with the outside map not appearing correctly.
    • Fixed an issue where an incorrect skin was being applied to certain classes/races when the Human Illusion buff is cast upon them.
  • Ulduar
    • The mob packs in the XT-002 Deconstructor encounter can now be engaged separately and are no longer linked.

More Ulduar trash to figure out? I can't wait! What are your thoughts?

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Fishing hasn't really gotten the spotlight with all the patch 3.1 changes. While I wouldn't call fishing "exciting", the changes have gotten me back to fishing and enjoying it! There are some great rewards and nick-nacks that may draw you back. My fishing is at 340. I recently picked up the Mastercraft Kalu'ak Fishing Pole and learned to make Captain Rumsey's Lager, so my effective fishing skill is just high enough to fish in Northrend. It used to be that fishing zones had a minimum fishing skill requirement as well as a skill level that was required to actually be guaranteed to catch fish. Because of this, instead of fishing in areas with useful fish appropriate to your skill level, it was more efficient to fish in areas where you were sure to catch fish if your sole (pun intended?) purpose to to level fishing, as catching any fish will give you a flat chance to skillup. The system remains the same, except there is no longer a minimum skill level to catch fish in zones, but if your skill is too low relative to the "expected" skill level of the zone, you will probably catch grey items, but you still have that same flat chance to skillup. Thus, you can level your fishing in Northrend with the same rate of skillups compared to fishing in Ironforge or Orgrimmar! To accompany this, there is a set of 5 fishing dailies available in Dalaran from Marcia Chase. The daily is random, and they are all pretty unique. Completing all five scores you 10 achievement points. Blood is Thicker has you kill animals and jump in water to create bloody pools in the water, which you then fish from to catch pirannhas. Dangerously Delicious has you fishing in Wintergrasp (which I take advantage of for some world PvP on my PvE server). The Ghostfish has you catch a fish that when eaten to finish the quest causes you to hallucinate. Jewel of the Sewers has you fish in The Underbelly, and Monsterbelly Appetite has you search for glaciers to stand on to fish in The Frozen Sea. Each of these quests rewards you with a Bag of Fishing Treasures, 250 Kirin Tor reputation, and a handful of gold. The Bag of Fishing Treasures contains lots of valuable vendor trash, some of these random items selling for 100g. There is a new volume of Steamy Romance Novels (as rogues well know). Other common items include Deviate Fish, Elixir of Water Walking, Glow Worm (+100 lure), Northsea Pearl, Pygmy Oil, Runic Mana Potion, and Siren's Tear. Among nick-nacks, there is the Sealed Vial of Poison that starts a quest to turn it in to the Dalaran black market for some gold. The Unusual Compass will turn your character to a random direction (spin the bottle [err, compass] anyone?). A Strand Crawler pet is available from the bag. There is a Tiny Titanium Lockbox that can contain many of the same items as the bag and some additional gems. You can get a Weather-Beaten Fishing Hat (which you can also get from the Shattrath daily) and High Test Eternium Fishing Line, which you previously could only get from the Stranglethron Fishing Extravaganza. You can also get the recipe for Captain Rumsey's Lager. For those without the Kalu'ak pole, you might want this bag for a chance at a Bone Fishing Pole or Jeweled Fishing Pole. There is also a new set of BoE epic gems called Stormjewels available randomly from the bag. You can only socket one. There are +20 gems for agility, intellect, spirit, strength, and hit rating, as well as +23 to spell power and +30 stamina. I believe these are all best in socket except for jewelcrafter exclusive gems. There are rumors that there is a "5 ring" out there to be caught as well. Its not in any databases, so I think its just a good joke. Oh, and did you hear about the new mount that swims at mounted speed through water? The turtle? You can only get that from fishing in schools of fish in Northrend. Its time to go fishing!

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With major UI changes now live in patch 3.1, you may find your carefully tweaked interface less than functional. Many major addons are updating very quickly and are well prepared thanks to the PTR, but for addons that are developed by one or two people, both of whom are very excited to jump into Ulduar, updates may not come so soon. For players new to the addons scene, if you want to try experimenting with getting your now outdated addons, be sure to hit "addons" in the bottom left of your character selection screen and check the box that says "load out of date addons". At this point, I would suggest turning on one or two addons at a time and playing with them to see how functional they are before continuing. It can be very confusing as to why there are strange bars on your screen or why you can't open your professions windows when you turn on dozens of addons at once. To start checking out updates for your addons, check out the Curse addon client or the WoWinterface addon client. Both of these scan your addons and make installation and updates of addons much easier. When an addon updates, test it out and make sure it does what you want it to. This may be a good time to invest in a "bug grabber" addon. If your addons give you a lot of errors, an bug grabber will suppress the windows and put them in a different place where you can opt to view later. I use tekErr for being lightweight and working well. I don't see any addon errors anymore. On another note, this may be a good time to lighten up your interface. Clean out those addons you don't use and see if you see a performance increase. I was reminded of how fast WoW can load when all my addons are off! How is everyone's interface? Did you bite the bullet and jump into Ulduar with a broken interface, or are you fine-tuning it before your adventure?

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As you're reading this, the maintenance period for patch 3.1 has been extended, but very shortly, the gates of Ulduar will be opened, Emalon the Storm Watcher will start giving out free purples to whoever controls Wintergrasp, and duel specs will be live! Keep in mind that your talent points will be reset and you should probably take care of that before entering Ulduar. If you haven't already, go watch the official cinematic trailer. Note that it does contain spoilers if you have not completed the Wrathgate questline. Here are my observations from the trailer:

• Jaina Proudmoore has a new (old?) face! Instead of using the standard human female face model, she now has her own face that looks much more like her old model in Warcraft III. I've never played an Alliance character so I'm not too familiar with her "old" "WoW face" and like this new one much better.

• Garrosh Hellscream is one hotheaded little Mag'har orc. For being such a pansy when he was chilling in Nagrand, he is certainly taking after Grom.

• The Horde/Alliance conflict is being featured quite prominently. It makes me want to transfer back to a PvP server. It reinforces my suspicions that 3.2 may not contain a major raid and be PvP oriented.

• It is heavily implied that Yogg-Saron has influence over both Garrosh Hellscream and Varian Wrynn. I wonder if we will see a parallel of Grom Hellscream breaking free of the Burning Legion's influence by killing Mannoroth with Garrosh and King Varian. Not likely; maybe down the line leading us into the next expansion.

• Rhonin finally speaks! Rhonin is quite an epic character in the lore and seeing him play an active and audible role is awesome.

What is the first thing everyone is going to do in patch 3.1? Join up with your guild and hit Ulduar? Argent Tournament? Learn dual spec?

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With patch 3.1 expected to hit live realms in the next 2-3 weeks, its time to start speculating about patch 3.2! We know that patch 3.3 or 3.4 (probably 3.4) will introduce Icecrown Citadel, but it is uncertain what the other two patches are to contain. Patch 3.3 is known to progress the Ashbringer storyline, but its unclear if this will be Icecrown Citadel or not. Not every "point" release has brought with it new raid or even new dungeon content. Zarhym did say that patch 3.2 would contain a new dungeon back in October in an interview with Curse, but he could have meant battleground. While most patches have released new PvE content, patches as late as 2.2 have not contained new PvE content. Patch 2.2 added in-game voice chat, Brewfest, and Hallow's End, as well as UI and feature additions. Expecting 4 PvE content patches for Wrath might not be completely accurate. There are many potential old-world zones that could be used for new raids. Grim Batol has a rich history with the dragons, which could easily work into the Wrath storyline. Neltharion is hiding somewhere out there, and Grim Batol may be that place. Alternatively, Uldum (in Tanaris) could be the logical progression to Ulduar, as there are many loose threads in the story involving Uldum. Hyjal is still not a finished zone, nor is Gilneas, and there are yet some unnamed zones on the map. Blizzard has stated that they want to keep the old world relevant, as they did in patch 2.4 by bringing players back to the Sunwell, and I don't think its unlikely that one of these zones will be added in either patch 3.2, 3.3, or 3.4. However, I think its likely that 3.2 will not contain a new major raid zone. There are several reasons why I think this. We have been teased with a new battleground that is on the scale of Alterac Valley, and AV marks have been re-added to the requirement for For Great Honor/Concerted Efforts. The battleground has been described as "epic", on the scale of AV. Additionally, they say they are "revamping" the battleground system to reward skill in PvP more than they have. Additionally, Arena has been receiving a lot of attention with rating reworking changes to open it up to new players and the tournament. Blizzard may be trying to draw players to PvP. Hardcore PvP certainly brings WoW into the spotlight as a competitive game and may prolong its lifespan. Thus, I predict 3.2 will largely be a PvP patch. Wintergrasp will be overhauled and rethought with the lessons learned since the release of Wrath, battleground rewards will be reworked, and the new battleground will be introduced. This would fit in with the theme of Horde vs. Alliance that Blizzard is attempting to re-kindle with things like the post-Wrathgate events and whatnot. To satisfy PvE players, I bet they open up another short raid in the Chamber of the Aspects. There are 5 portals there, and we don't really know whats going in those. Its likely that Blizzard will reserve one or two of them for the next expansion to keep players coming to Northrend (maybe the green portal if its Emerald Dream themed), but I doubt we won't see more open soon. Maybe the blue portal will open in response to the end of the Nexus war. One battleground that has faded into obscurity is Azshara Crater. It was originally alluded to all the back in patch 1.3 (released March 7th, 2005) and is brought up now and again. The terrain is in the game files and appears to be Tauren vs. Night Elf themed. The entrances are already made on the Forlorn Ridge. The Tauren have not been the key faction in any battleground, and the blood elves may also be interested in Azshara. Perhaps the zone will be further developed and the battleground added. The battleground is known to be on the scale of AV and since there was already so much development on it, perhaps it will be implemented. Blizzard had lots of problems balancing AV for a long time, but now that they claim they are satisfied with game legnth and win ratio of the factions, it may be time to see another "epic" battleground. What would you like to see in patch 3.2? More raids, more dungeons, or more PvP?

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Ah, the smells of spring. The snow has melted, the sun is shining, and there is a new content patch on the horizon. And its a doozy. Most serious PvE players have content to a satisfactory farm status. Most PvP players have all the gear they are capable of getting this season. Players have found distractions like achievements or the arena tournament, but there is little sense of progression for most players who have been level 80 for months. We have received confirmation from Bornakk that Arena season 5 will end very soon, as early as April 14.The Deadly Gladiator's titles and frostwyrms will be handed out, and patch 3.1 will be launched nearly simultaneously, and its even implied that season 5 will end only after patch 3.1 hits. Could this mean that patch 3.1 will hit as early as next Tuesday? Its likely. In the meantime, be sure to spend any arena points you have left over. All arena points will be set to zero once season 6 starts ends and all teams will be disbanded. Honor will remain intact. In fact, I suggest you save up the current maximum of 75,000 honor to start buying any deadly gladiator's pieces that you may need. Matchmaking ratings (MMRs) will be preserved, so when you start up your new teams next season, you will quickly progress to a rating that reflects your skill and likely your current ranking. In other news, the Arena Tournament is moving past phase 3 on April 7th. This is the cut-off for players to play their 200 games to get their armored murloc pet (which we have been using as a thumbnail for every PvP post) and try to get in the top 1,000 teams to advance for cash prizes. I personally missed the boat and threw away $20 on this deal. Have any of our readers secured their murloc or even a spot in phase 4?

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