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Forum Resident
#76 Old 31st Mar 2012 at 2:21 PM
It probably shouldn't surprise anyone that EA's stock price has sunk from an all-time high of near $60 back around 2006, to a little more than $12 today.

Perhaps the investors think this stuff sounds as crazy and useless as we do...
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#77 Old 31st Mar 2012 at 3:28 PM




Rogue Redeemer
retired moderator
#78 Old 31st Mar 2012 at 3:37 PM
Since the start of TS3, EA has chewed everything ready for us. Seriously, there is seemingly 'a lot to do' but everything just is pre-planned, pre-directed systems which we just repeat over and over again. There is no control for the player to create their own direction anymore. It's all just reduced to these different paths from which to choose from. Fame system, adventure system, performance system, profession system, collecting system, skill system... and now they are also reducing the free-will of the player into a pre-planned system with pre-planned options and goals, and taking out all of the sandbox-aspects! Sounds like they are making a game that plays itself.
Theorist
#79 Old 31st Mar 2012 at 4:15 PM
^ Agreed. This is why I was so irritated at the Simport rewards idea, for example. Locking content away unless you played the way they wanted you to has never been what this game was about. Same thing for those freaking badges. I do not find sending my sim to the gym 100 times just to earn a badge to be the least bit enjoyable. Even if I did, you can only do it once and then you're done. And the other "systems" you mentioned completely take away the control of the player.

As I said recently on the EA forum, bye-bye sims sandbox. Instead of players controlling our sims and their world, for some inexplicable reason the game designers have focused on controlling the players.

If I were a conspiracy theorist, I might start speculating on their ulterior motives for changing gameplay in this way...what motive might they have for getting players used to jumping through hoops and not having creative control?

¢¾ Receptacle Refugee ¢¾ ~ Where are we going, and why am I in this handbasket!? ~
Laura's Legacy
Site Helper
#80 Old 31st Mar 2012 at 4:29 PM
I believe that their motivation is quite simple: They have never played the game, can't imagine playing the game, and don't understand why anyone would want to play the game. Therefore, it makes sense to them to change the game to something else.
Top Secret Researcher
Original Poster
#81 Old 31st Mar 2012 at 5:08 PM
This what game designers do..because they think they know better than the player. I have worked with several, and some are worse than others. We had a guy who believed he had to control everything the players did because if he didn't, they would not play the game correctly...and this was an MMO. Eventually he left because the rest of us kept pushing him to make changes. If you read some game design books you will see that this is something designers are warned against....your players are not the enemy! Stop trying to make them play the way you want them to play!

But...if you think about profit, by controlling what we can do, they make us hungry for new content. We go through the content they give us and now need new things because we have done it all. They are forcing us to want new expansion packs and store items. In a true sandbox, we would be able to use what we have in many different ways and it would be less important to have new things all the time. A company loses money if they give us too much control and too many ways to use the same things in the game.

Thank goodness for the modders! If EA gives up on the Sims, at least we have them to continue to evolve our game. It might actually get better once EA is out of the picture.
Theorist
#82 Old 31st Mar 2012 at 5:29 PM
Exactly! This is what I think, too - they give us so little to keep us hungry and unsatisfied so that we jump all over the next thing they're bringing out.

It's also possible that they want to move the game to an even more controlled environment in the future, so they have to wean us off of all that creative control we were used to having. This could also explain why they are targeting social media users, or even young users.

¢¾ Receptacle Refugee ¢¾ ~ Where are we going, and why am I in this handbasket!? ~
Laura's Legacy
Top Secret Researcher
Original Poster
#83 Old 31st Mar 2012 at 5:37 PM
Quote: Originally posted by tangie0906
It's also possible that they want to move the game to an even more controlled environment in the future, so they have to wean us off of all that creative control we were used to having. This could also explain why they are targeting social media users, or even young users.


I don't think they care about keeping us as customers so I don't think it is weaning us off of creative control. They don't want creative players..they want players who will consume, and then buy again.

I remember years ago when Japan pretty much took over the appliance market. My teachers in school talked about the 'throwaway society', which referred to cheap products that had a shorter life and therefore, must be replaced. My mom still has her blender she bought before I was born and it works. We purchased the same brand of blender we bought 30 years later and it has been replaced several times. This is how companies make profits..by forcing you to replace your products.

Game companies are doing the same thing now. They make game features consumable so that they are used up. Then they release add-ons to give us more to consume. We now have throwaway games. Not that this is really new since in the past, most games were like this. I love Longest Journey, but it ended and it is no fun to play it again and again.
Mad Poster
#84 Old 31st Mar 2012 at 8:09 PM
Quote: Originally posted by rian90
I don't think they care about keeping us as customers so I don't think it is weaning us off of creative control. They don't want creative players..they want players who will consume, and then buy again.

I remember years ago when Japan pretty much took over the appliance market. My teachers in school talked about the 'throwaway society', which referred to cheap products that had a shorter life and therefore, must be replaced. My mom still has her blender she bought before I was born and it works. We purchased the same brand of blender we bought 30 years later and it has been replaced several times. This is how companies make profits..by forcing you to replace your products.

Game companies are doing the same thing now. They make game features consumable so that they are used up. Then they release add-ons to give us more to consume. We now have throwaway games. Not that this is really new since in the past, most games were like this. I love Longest Journey, but it ended and it is no fun to play it again and again.



If you throw away a certain game then, for the "throw away concept" to be profitable, the company would have to have something to replace that game with. I think games are more like shampoo bottles than blenders. You play them, win, then play another game, and so on. MMOs have managed to get constant profit by offering updates and extras, which is more like refill packs for liquid soap bottles. The sims does the same, but through EPs and SPs and store content. The problem with TS3 is that it doesn't encourange replayability as much as the previous games and people who don't play as much won't buy as much additional content for the game.
Forum Resident
#85 Old 31st Mar 2012 at 8:47 PM
Have you noticed, though, that what was said in the article wasn't really even what you'd call gameplay?

Hilleman talked about phone apps which would let you take a picture of a chair and then pay $20 for EA to make it for you. Or a phone app to allow you to have conversations with your sim. Or a phone app which would allow you to carry your sim with you and then insert him in the pictures you take, pretending he was right there enjoying an activity with you.

Heck, even the director to orchestrate your movie-making projects wasn't about gameplay.

None of that is about actually playing the game. EA is reducing The Sims to an activity, not a game.

And, frankly, I think that's the suckiest part of all. It certainly explains the lack of interactions and animations that many of us complain about. (God forbid they give us something which might enhance actual gameplay!)
Top Secret Researcher
#86 Old 31st Mar 2012 at 10:19 PM
Quote: Originally posted by rian90
This what game designers do..because they think they know better than the player. I have worked with several, and some are worse than others. We had a guy who believed he had to control everything the players did because if he didn't, they would not play the game correctly...and this was an MMO. Eventually he left because the rest of us kept pushing him to make changes. If you read some game design books you will see that this is something designers are warned against....your players are not the enemy! Stop trying to make them play the way you want them to play!

But...if you think about profit, by controlling what we can do, they make us hungry for new content. We go through the content they give us and now need new things because we have done it all. They are forcing us to want new expansion packs and store items. In a true sandbox, we would be able to use what we have in many different ways and it would be less important to have new things all the time. A company loses money if they give us too much control and too many ways to use the same things in the game.

Thank goodness for the modders! If EA gives up on the Sims, at least we have them to continue to evolve our game. It might actually get better once EA is out of the picture.


I could not possibly disagree more. Give me complete control and I'll keep buying new stuff for the game; restrict my control and I lose interest.

The way I see it, there was a time before people went to school to learn how to make games, and instead people just made games that they would have fun playing. In the process of doing so, they made games that other people had fun playing. The last person any game development company should hire is someone who thinks they learned how to make fun games in a classroom.

TS2 and TS3: Where adult sims potty train their toddlers.
TS4: Where adult sims make Angry Poops.

Which game is made for the juvenile minded?
Top Secret Researcher
Original Poster
#87 Old 31st Mar 2012 at 10:23 PM
Zigersimmer, I agree with you. I was trying to make a point that the companies see things this way, unfortunately. I also absolutely agree with on the classroom issues. It is like the doctor who is happy to see a rare disease and doesn't think about how a misdiagnosis affects his patients. They get so excited by the theory, that they forget about the application.

Crocobaura...YES! Shampoo bottle is much better.
Banned
#88 Old 31st Mar 2012 at 10:41 PM
Game companies are doing the same thing now. They make game features consumable so that they are used up. Then they release add-ons to give us more to consume

You are playing the game wrong if you think The Sims is this kind of game. Absolutely. This is a limitless free-form game. What you are saying is just pure nonsense.
Forum Resident
#89 Old 31st Mar 2012 at 11:06 PM
Free-form HA! Don't make me laugh. Sims 2 was free form, sims 3 is hardly free form. You can't see your sims work, it's hard to actually control them to fall in love with some sims, instead of two married couple jumping into bed to have sex, you actually have to make them socialize and make out first (So much for Sims that just have sex and don't do the mushy stuff, aleast in 2 they could do that).

And do not even get me started on the younger generations. You can't control what a teenager does anymore. A teenager out on the path RIGHT OUTSIDE THEIR HOUSE but take two steps and suddenly the cops are arresting a teen who is innocently standing on the side walk staring at the moon while her Granddaddy is outside but halfway down the lawn but can still see her. It's difficult to get a sim to leave the house when grounded (Which then your teen sim can't tell the freaking parent to get lost, or to flip the cop and have the mother, instead lecture the teen, slap the cop for arresting her daughter standing out on the goddamn pathway A child sim can't even sleep over at her non controllable aunt's house), you can't stop a sim from accusing another of cheating (And that Sim can't defend themselves).

See, in Sims 2 unless they weren't caught (And due to this pathetic cheaters reputation, even if the two sims are alone together the spouse still freaking finds out because of the rep) they could go have sex on the roof of their house while the spouse was in the gardens non the wiser. Teens only got caught sneaking out if the cops came after them with the Sneak out Option (And that was pointless. You can still take your sim out at midnight and make her come home at 7 clock in the morning, where time resets but nobody gives a damn that she was out).

I know what you are gonna say, nostalgia and all that crap. Maybe it is or maybe, there's a line between sandbox and pretty much not able to do what you want. Hell your sims can't do what they want. She has a baby before she's marries? She gets slandered. His wife dies when he was a YA and now he's almost an elder and marries another woman, bam he's a cheater to an dead woman. The teen son and the father decides to race each other downtown with the mother's knowledge and the father is behind the teen, he can see him up the path yet the cops comes and arrest his son! (By the time they even get to the son, the father has freaking reached him already! Then the stupid mother comes and lectures the son when she full well knows what happens). There is a line when this just becomes ridiculous, and maybe not all of us are blind to EA, and okay they have faults.

But there's a line Eve, there's a line and EA started crossing it in the beginning of Sims 3, Generations (Let me add the fact your aggressive Rottweiler can bark and chase a townie all over the town in the middle of the night, a horse can just run through someone's garden on the other side of the side, a puppy doesn't get picked up by animal control, yet a teen stands a foot out of the grid that is your house and they are arrested for nothing, in the real world that cop would have been sacked after the parents called corruption). reaches halfway point, Showtime is almost there and now the line has been crossed.
One Minute Ninja'd
#90 Old 31st Mar 2012 at 11:28 PM
Quote: Originally posted by AdamantEve
Game companies are doing the same thing now. They make game features consumable so that they are used up. Then they release add-ons to give us more to consume

You are playing the game wrong if you think The Sims is this kind of game. Absolutely. This is a limitless free-form game. What you are saying is just pure nonsense.


Are you sure this really isn't Claeric aka Shivar aka???

You are, in a sense, correct. The Sims was an open, free-form game. The Sims 2 began to introduce some more structured play. The Sims 3 has, over the course of it's release and EP/updates, become more and more goal directed play, with achievements, badges, and goals to be met. The Sims 4 (or maybe they'll just go back to calling it The Sims, like SimCity is) appears earmarked to be a mashup of The Sims Social, The Sims 3 later EPs, an EA version of FB, and perhaps The Sims for iPhone.

As for the clueless Rich Hilleman, I can only believe he's just blowing smoke out his ass. Look at some of his statements:
Quote:
If you think about each of those current audiences today and what future Sims product we'd want to give them, what the dollhouser wants is not an application on their computer, but they want an application on their phone that I can go take a picture of that chair, and "get that chair in my game for $20," or for some number.


I guess he forgot to ask EA's intellectual property attorneys about the violations involved in taking copyrighted furniture designs and rendering them for sale without obtaining a license from the holder of a probably copyrighted chair design. After all, there are some pretty famous designers out there who do work to protect their rights. I bet EA would sure be quick to send a cease and desist letter to some website selling "exact renderings" of their Store stuff.

Quote:
That second group -- the virtual character owners, the people who want a relationship -- they want to be able to have a deeper emotional interaction with their characters. What I would give them is the ability to have video chat with their Sims. Now, the Sims speak Simlish -- and I wouldn't change that, by the way -- but that doesn't mean that we can't have something that produces an emotionally evocative experience.


So, he wouldn't change them speaking in Simlish as your pixel character tries to build an "emotionally evocative experience" with you. So now, instead of my character picking up a sim in a bar, they'll try to pick me up, in Simlish, no less?

Quote:
So what movie makers want most of all is the ability to direct the Sims. But if I give them the joystick control to drive the Sims around, they're going to break things, and we're going to have less fun....

So as an example in this case, what I'll do is instead I'll give them the director. Instead of being able to direct the character themselves, I'll give them Martin Scorsese, who can.


I wonder if he checked with Martin to see if he was onboard with having his directorial skills converted for use in the Sims 4? I might be wrong, but I'll bet he hasn't signed the contract for having his digital, Simlish speaking self making Sim movies because players "might break things if they have control".

I might be tempted to get excited about EA developing the AI to automate, control, record, and edit a sim movie, but I might have more faith in that achievement if they can first get my SINGER to actually SING, you know, SOUND, consistently, in the game before reinventing the "Director's Cut".

As to how well EA has been doing with their carefully crafted, market targeted developments, it is interesting to note that of the top 15 Best Selling PC games of all time, The Sims was #1, The Sims 2 #4, and the Sims 3, well, not in the top 15. Source: http://www.tomshardware.com/picture...-game-list.html.

I think there needs to be a reevaluation of the corporate philosophy that EA seems to foster, before their claim to have the pulse of their "target audience" can be taken seriously.
Top Secret Researcher
Original Poster
#91 Old 1st Apr 2012 at 12:27 AM
Limitless free form game? LOL The ideas in this article totally takes us even further away from that, which is what we are discussing here. EA is making the Sims less and less a sandbox, which is really what it was back in Sims 2. There are still sandbox features in Sims 3, but mostly due to the way we play and our modders. EA has done everything it can to toss in quests, locked content, silly opportunities that you have over and over again (they did allow us to turn that off though), and various other goodies that are turning Sims into a Theme Park game...one where they casually direct along straight line to get to our goal...whether it be a longer visa, a level 10 singer, unlocking stage stuff, or those lifetime wishes.
Lab Assistant
#92 Old 1st Apr 2012 at 12:48 AM
^ its for sure all about the money, and even when that guy said those things , it just a pathetic way to gather more attention from simmers to see how would they react for stuff like that ( same as all EP leaks and bla bla ), for sure its all about money, they take all what they call asking the simmers what they want and put it through what they actually want to create more bucks and as others said, its very clear how their system and ideas are all based on a dead end EP, with certain quests and awards, hence the way of making people consume more hunger for more of those awards, otherwise why would they build a whole system (simport and these annoying stuff) based on awards! come on that advertising women looks overly and seriously weirdly excited, her eyes were gonna pop out for crying out loud! They
Banned
#93 Old 1st Apr 2012 at 1:02 AM Last edited by AdamantEve : 1st Apr 2012 at 1:20 AM.
The Sims was an open, free-form game. The Sims 2 began to introduce some more structured play. The Sims 3 has, over the course of it's release and EP/updates, become more and more goal directed play, with achievements, badges, and goals to be met.

I'm sorry, but at what point in play are you forced to meet any of those goals or earn any of those achievements?

Oh, you have to WORK to get promoted? You had to do that in the first game. Oh, you have to run an errand to get a special item required for something you want to do? Have you ever heard of Makin' magic? Oh, what's that? You don't like having to waste time off-lot to do menial repetitive tasks to become better at your fancy job that came with an expansion pack? Better not play Superstar! Oh, you don't like optionally earning things while on Vacation? Better not install a single Vacation-related expansion. You don't like having to try for a good date whenever you have one? Better not play Hot Date, Nightlife, OR Late Night! You don't like your parties being judged? Better not play House Party or Sims 2! You don't like having to impress people? Better not play Sims 2 (Headmaster)!

The ONLY quest-like thing in all of Sims 3 that even remotely is "required" is that you need visa points to own a vacation home. Are you saying that requiring your sim earn the right to buy a vacation home is ruining the whole series and forcing you to do goal-oriented gameplay? Are you unaware that you can simply not do 99.9% of the goal-oriented stuff in the game and play it exactly as you played Sims 1 and Sims 2?

Rose-tinted glasses is not a strong enough term here. Your rose tinted glasses are dipped in chloroform and came with a side of roofie-colada so you could go have a fun time at nostalgia's house without remembering anything so he could make it sound like it was great when you come to. "They're making the game have OPTIONAL GOALS that don't affect gameplay!' is one of the most unbelievably alarmist statements I've ever seen someone make about this game. Optional goals that don't affect gameplay have existed since the first game! If anything, the first game and Sims 2 have more optional goal-oriented stuff that you have to do to unlock gameplay than Sims 3 does!

And I'd like to add that the premise of having to do a whole crapton of stuff to have the right to buy a house was present in Sims 1, too, so the ONE goal in Sims 3 that you *have* to do to unlock an aspect of gameplay isn't even something exclusive to Sims 3! It's been around since the first game!

I don't even like Sims 3 that much, and I can't stand EA, and the game runs slow, and things could be done better, but man, this is ridiculous. They're ruining your game experience by adding things that you don't have to do that don't detract from your experience at all? That's ridiculous. That is an inexcusable level of entitlement, and the fact that you seem to think these things are new and exclusive to Sims 3 when they've been there all along just makes it worse.

This applies to all of you!
Test Subject
#94 Old 1st Apr 2012 at 1:41 AM
Quote: Originally posted by AdamantEve
I'm sorry, but at what point in play are you forced to meet any of those goals or earn any of those achievements?


If I wanted to unlock achievements or badges I'd go play my PS3 or Xbox. Even if they are optional, and I choose not play with them the fact is that this game at no point should have any of this. I'll stress again I understand they are optional, but they are unappealing to me and it feels like they are taking the game in a different direction by doing so. This is The Sims not Resistance 2 where I was proud to unlock the achievement of reaching ten thousand kills but having my sim let's say write 80 novels is pretty stupid achievement.
Lab Assistant
#95 Old 1st Apr 2012 at 1:49 AM
Quote: Originally posted by AdamantEve

The ONLY quest-like thing in all of Sims 3 that even remotely is "required" is that you need visa points to own a vacation home. Are you saying that requiring your sim earn the right to buy a vacation home is ruining the whole series and forcing you to do goal-oriented gameplay? Are you unaware that you can simply not do 99.9% of the goal-oriented stuff in the game and play it exactly as you played Sims 1 and Sims 2?


It's not that you can ignore it ( some stuff you can't like reputation ..etc) but if you get out all of the quests stuff, like collecting things and earning awards and bla bla boring stuff, EA could have done a way more better job, they could save their power to something that would really matter, after all there are bazillions of other games that is targeted this way, and that's defiantly not why simmers went from sims 2 for! they just want to have every thing so they could attract lots of customers as they want by hinting stuff all over, they sucked at making a quest game (very very lame one ) and sucked at creating a playing in game experience life experience, and you just cant get every thing
Test Subject
#96 Old 1st Apr 2012 at 2:00 AM
Hey guys, Richard Hilleman doesn't even work on games let alone Sims 3. He's a corporate suit with a fancy title that spends most of his time teaching at the "EA University." The last time he was involved with a game was in the 90s when he was working on hockey and golf games.

They asked him a question and he produced some hypotheticals for a popular EA title. These are not EA's design goals for The Sims, this is crap he (somebody not involved at all with the games) thought up on the spot.
Banned
#97 Old 1st Apr 2012 at 2:01 AM
Quote: Originally posted by DeathByBeingStoned
If I wanted to unlock achievements or badges I'd go play my PS3 or Xbox. Even if they are optional, and I choose not play with them the fact is that this game at no point should have any of this. I'll stress again I understand they are optional, but they are unappealing to me and it feels like they are taking the game in a different direction by doing so. This is The Sims not Resistance 2 where I was proud to unlock the achievement of reaching ten thousand kills but having my sim let's say write 80 novels is pretty stupid achievement.


So your reasoning is "I don't care if it doesn't affect me, I want to be affected, so I'm gonna be angry about it!". Is that right? You acknowledge that it doesn't affect you in any way, but because you don't care for it personally, you're choosing to let it damage the experience for you when you know and admit that it doesn't actually do that?

That's the entitlement that's making me really quickly hate this game and the community. This is the most ridiculous place I've ever been. Is this whole thread an april fools joke with a really long and early setup?
One Minute Ninja'd
#98 Old 1st Apr 2012 at 2:10 AM
Quote: Originally posted by AdamantEve
Are you unaware that you can simply not do 99.9% of the goal-oriented stuff in the game and play it exactly as you played Sims 1 and Sims 2?


Quite true. Which is why I, and I believe others in this discussion, feel that EA could at least attempt to make the 0.1% remaining portion of the game that we enjoy playing with, reasonably bug free.


Quote:

I don't even like Sims 3 that much, and I can't stand EA, and the game runs slow, and things could be done better, but man, this is ridiculous. They're ruining your game experience by adding things that you don't have to do that don't detract from your experience at all? That's ridiculous. That is an inexcusable level of entitlement, and the fact that you seem to think these things are new and exclusive to Sims 3 when they've been there all along just makes it worse.

This applies to all of you!


The issue being discussed should be of some relevance to you, as the fact that the game does run poorly, could have been "better made", and should be more "likable", is what we all really want addressed.

Instead of creating "new" features like Simport (which is busted, anyway), real time in game chat (this isn't some FPS where we want to trash talk to our opponents), or achievement badges for our EA/Origin/FB page (I have never even visited my EA page, well, maybe once when I first registered, but not again), it should be reasonable to request EA to devote some resources to updating, patching, improving, or otherwise correcting the basic errors in their game code that does negatively impact our gaming experience.

This essential difference of opinion is best exemplified by Mr. Hilliman's comments. His "world view" of game development came right from a PowerPoint presentation he either saw, or, which would be really sad, gave. He hit on "cross platform" play, smartphones, social networking, and "mass customization", all great areas of research and development, without a clue as to what they actually MEAN in context for a game like the Sims. He still can't figure out why The Sims for iPhone was not a runaway success, while Angry Birds was.

EA does not owe me a great game. Then again, I do not owe EA any commitment to purchase their products. However, if EA would like me to purchase their products (which, at the end of the day, is their business model, selling games) then they might want to consider what it is I might actually buy, rather than what they think I should buy. That is the fundamental issue being discussed in this, and other, threads.
Test Subject
#99 Old 1st Apr 2012 at 2:18 AM
Quote: Originally posted by AdamantEve
So your reasoning is "I don't care if it doesn't affect me, I want to be affected, so I'm gonna be angry about it!". Is that right? You acknowledge that it doesn't affect you in any way, but because you don't care for it personally, you're choosing to let it damage the experience for you when you know and admit that it doesn't actually do that?

That's the entitlement that's making me really quickly hate this game and the community. This is the most ridiculous place I've ever been. Is this whole thread an april fools joke with a really long and early setup?


Let me make my point a little bit clearer for you: In no way, shape or form should there be any sort of achievement/badge system optional or not involved in The Sims. When I want to unlock achievements I'll go play another game, like Resistance 2 which is the point of playing that game. Also I don't let it affect me or how I play the game, I simply do not use that feature but that does not change the fact that it does not belong in a game like this.
Alchemist
#100 Old 1st Apr 2012 at 2:31 AM
Quote: Originally posted by AdamantEve
because you don't care for it personally, you're choosing to let it damage the experience for you when you know and admit that it doesn't actually do that?

That's the entitlement that's making me really quickly hate this game and the community.


Take a look at yourself, Adamant. You don't care for the way this community talks about this game, and that's making you really quickly hate a single player game?

The community doesn't have to damage the experience for you. You can go away, ignore it, and happily play your game in peace. But you seem to have a sense of entitlement yourself, that this community should behave the way you want it to behave.
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