Steam+ Deals Mega Thread (All PC Gaming Deals)

Neuro5i5

Neuro5i5

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This thread will attempt to provide a place to discuss past/present/future PC gaming deals. While mainly focusing on Steam games, any standout sales may also be presented. I will not be updating every Daily/Weekly/etc. sale. The tools to help individuals become a smarter shopper will be provided below.

See this POST for links to store sale pages, threads of interest and other tools to help you become a more informed PC game shopper.
 
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nitrosmob said:
Finally got a 4080 in my setup. Got one new off Ebay when I was paying for a LEGO minifigure (Beast to go with Wolverine I already had from new minifigure set). Freakin' huge haha. I had plenty of space, but yeah I really hope they minimize these designs a bit for future iterations. I'll see when I replace it in 10 years or something. Now time to play some indie games and demos from the FPS fest thing!
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That's awesome dude, congrats! :D/

the Ebay rabbit hole strikes again

 
PC is a great platform.

An INSANE library that can date back decades here to likely DOS and Windows 95 era & also so many great deals so that many of us here on CAG have backlogs on top of backlogs, even if you ain't got the latest & greatest for hardware.

So many classics on GOG and Steam.

Seriously, many of us here could stop buying games and live off just our backlogs, if we wanted to.

EDIT:

And also, while I'm at it: it's often best to buy games way later, especially in AAA space. So many busted, broken, poor performing games on Day 1 got WAY better w/ patches, overhauls, expansions, DLC's, Re-Release Editions, and/or whatnot some months to years down the road. Much better hardware that blows away old demanding games can help - nice to see AC Unity and GTA4 finally run really good, once RTX 3000 cards hit. I bet Starfield will be much better, after a few years down the line w/ more patches, fixes, mods, and newer hardware out there. Took Enhanced Editions to get Witcher 1 and 2 where it belonged. Cyberpunk 2077 feels like the game it should've been 3 years ago...or this is now should've been their first release of CP 2077.

 
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I would sell all my consoles before I'd quit PC gaming at this point. PC offers so much freedom, too many games and far superior performance to ever think about going back to console-only gaming.

 
The reason I’ve always been more on the console side is that I don’t care much about performance, graphical fidelity, or absolute library size—I prefer creativity, character, and visual style. Not to say that you can’t get that in spades on PC, especially from indies, but it feels like traditionally you get it most, and best executed, in Japanese games, which until quite recently haven’t had much presence on PC outside of their indie scene; most of the modern Japanese games I’m most interested in still either aren’t on PC or haven’t been ported well.

Of course, these same preferences are what are turning me into a primarily retro gamer, as creativity and character are withering on the vine regardless of the region; at least outside the indie scene, which has its own deficiencies. Which means that it’s taking me longer to adopt new consoles, which means that for much of the past dozen years my laptop has been the most modern gaming machine I own. Combine that with the better deals on the games I’m only passingly interested in, and now I’ve got a larger PC library than console one.

My heart will always belong to my PS1, though, even if I haven’t plugged it in since like 2008 due to owning a PS2, modded PSP, and a computer with an emulator.
 
PC gaming is definitely better than console gaming in many ways, but I prefer console gaming. It is more relaxing for me to game from my couch on a game console. I know you can hook up your PC to an entertainment system. I just have my PC at my desk and I do PC stuff on it like email, browsing the internet, etc... I rarely game on it. Having said that I have a decent game library on my PC and when I do play a game on the PC I am impressed with how much sharper the images are and how quickly things load. 

 
I love that w/ console gaming - just boot the game and go. Of course, as long as there's no performance stutters, slow-downs, etc - that's fine. But, I just ain't super-fond of shooters w/ controllers. Sure, they're a lot better now than they were back in the old Xbox era - but it still doesn't feel even as precise as I'd like it, TBH. Uncharted DF Remastered and TLOU Remastered felt good on PS4 gamepad - but just not say mouse-keyboard great. They're fine on the PS4 gamepad, but I so still prefer mouse and keyboard for these type of games.

But, I also love PC gaming w/ tinkering and fine-tuning games, to get better framerates, performance, different resolutions, whatever. I can control all of this stuff....and get it to where I'm fine with it. It's even better if you have great hardware too. I also love that certain games are super-moddable - like many Bethesda titles, NWN games, DAO, Vampire Bloodlines, etc - and your gaming experience can be improved and/or changed with mods...and it's often for the better.

 
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Playstation Network's price increase has really soured me on consoles as a primary format. $70 a year minimum to play games online is a bitter pill. 

Nintendo Online doesn't offer much, but at least it's only $20 a year. 

Microsoft's $15 a month is rough, but at least with it you also get PC Gamepass, and every so often there's a big day 1 release like Starfield. 

 
Problem w/ Console Game Pass or PC Game Pass is - well, if you don't finish a game without the time before you spend $70-80 on Game Pass just to play with - well, you could've bought the damn thing to own it in the first place. Game Pass probably could've had me forever subbed on PC, if they stuck to $5 per month. I'd rather chuck $12 at Humble Choice Monthly and get Steam keys, for games I can actually keep.

About PSN - well, a lot of that stuff to just play MP games online is free on PC, as long as you're paying your ISP. What PSN does to make you have MP-access and spend $70 per year - that sucks; that's often the cost of one new game. On PC: sure, some games might have sub-fees monthly (usually MMO's) - but, many don't do that b/c they can't compete w/ WoW and many just let the $15 sub-fee recur...and it ain't worth trying that route for many anymore. They (dev's/pub's) might have additional monthly fee that's optional for extra benefits in an online-game like a Fallout 76 - but, that's about it. Those online-games would rather charge you $ for skins, MTX's, expansions, DLC's, Battle Passes, etc etc.

 
What is also turning me off for consoles is $70 MSRP for bigger games on consoles being the norm especially on PS5. This is also bleeding into the PC sphere, but as I said games on release get discounts.

I also ended up playing many Realms Deep event demos. There was a boat load of bad or average ones. I think the worst one I wrote about was Phantom Fury, a sequel to Ion Fury. That was absolutely dreadful to play and I hope that is nothing like the final game. My favorites were likely Luna Abyss and Selaco, which I would gladly pick up on higher sales or slightly more expensive bundles.

Bangkok Story: A Stray Dog - 10 minutes. This one was a kind of RPGMaker looking adventure game about a homeless man who is no longer homeless and is going to do an interview with an English speaker. This one looks okay enough. It’s more of a visual novel with some RPG stuff tacked on. Overall it seemed decent enough, and is inspired by true stories. I would still likely only get it bundled or very cheap. 7/10

BioCrisis : Return 2 the Lab - 4 minutes. Just played a bit of the first level. This feels like a House of the Dead inspired game but without the charm of those games. It controlled okay enough, but was not really doing much for me. The music I wasn’t super impressed with either with some generic techno going on. Just okay and likely only would get bundled. 6/10

Crop Rotation - 37 minutes completed demo. This one is kind of an idle farmer thing except instead of stuff happening in real time, you set up cards of crops and other things and click a button to start and harvest each day. This one had okay music, decent enough graphics, and seemed fun. It felt very much like Luck Be a Landlord except a lot less lucky except for what you can draft. You also get contracts for things which earn more cards. After a certain number of rounds you pay off some of the debt. Seemed pretty fun, although would get repetitive quickly. Would likely only get bundled, but felt very good. 6.5/10

Do Not Buy This Game - 4 minutes. Do not play this demo. It’s just a walking simulator with very slowly walking and a voice telling you to not do things. 5/10

DRAKE - 11 minutes. This one is an isometric RPG where you travel around and do things. You move around and can take on tasks differently according to your class, similar to like a Fallout game. It seemed pretty decent enough and had decent enough graphics. I would play it for sure bundled. 6.5/10

Echo of the Stars - 1 minute. Just a plain not for me beat em up with skills. It just felt horrible, looked OK, and was clunky to control with a Series X controller. 4.5/10

Extraneum - 5 minutes. Pretty basic kind of hard normal difficulty FPS. It only has one plane and reminds me a bit of Blake Stone. Pretty okay graphics, but the bullet sponge enemies along with them doing a lot of damage isn’t nice. This I would only get bundled. 5.5/10

Fallen Aces - 12 minutes. This one was a pretty cool first person brawler game. You sneak around and have a crazy punch and fight some guys. There is some mob story, but I didn’t pay too much attention. This one looked nice, sounded nice, and played pretty well. Overall it’s a very decent demo, and a good game to get bundled or on sale. 7/10

Gunhead - 10 minutes. FPS rogue lite game where you go searching and taking out cores on ships. This felt pretty clunk in battles, but had alright graphics and controls. I wasn’t too crazy about this one as there was already an FPS game that was about exploring sites and collecting stuff, and I felt it was better. 6/10

Iron Meat - 9 minutes. This is an okay 2D run and gun similar to Contra. It even has the things fly by to give powerups. The bullets and things sometimes seemed a bit hard to avoid. The graphics and music were quite excellent. I liked this enough, but it felt a little clunky. I would likely only get bundled. 6/10

The Last Exterminator - 9 minutes. This one was an FPS throwback similar to Duke Nukem 3D, but playing more like Half Life 1. This one was challenging with little bullets, but seemed fun. I also like the retro 3D graphics. Likely would only get bundled or very cheap. 6.5/10

Luna Abyss - 25 minutes completed demo. This one is an atmospheric FPS action game where you are on an alien ship and go around. You sometimes have to do battle and it becomes a little twitchy and like a bullet hell shooter. It was pretty polished, although the movement was floaty at times. The actual shooting was pretty good. This one is worth it bundled or on sale. 7.5/10

Mala Petaka - 17 minutes. A very quick FPS game with cartoony like graphics. It’s mainly going around Doom style and fighting in mini arenas. There are so many drops and it played fast and decently well. It felt so repetitive already though. This is okay feeling, but was just not super fun. It is still worth it bundled or very cheap. 6/10

Necrofugitive - 7 minutes. This is an action kind of stealthy action game thing set in medieval times. I liked the look and sound of this 2D platformer, but I hated the gameplay. This felt hard without there being as much substance other than blending in and not trying to cause attention with shapeshifting. 5/10

Phantom Fury - 6 minutes. I hated this FPS. It just didn’t control very well and had enemies that soaked up many bullets and did a lot of damage. I believe this is a sequel to Ion Fury, and I haven’t played the first, but this just felt horrible. Would only ever get bundled and in a cheap one at that. 5/10

Play Rough - 18 minutes. This one is a very off kilter Earthbound/Undertale like RPG with decent graphics, a kind of weird RPG system where your main guy kind of controls like Sabin from FF6 with combos using keyboard keys. Overall I kind of liked it for a decent difficulty, but nothing drew me in a lot. Would likely only play bundled. 6/10

Regulator City - 8 minutes. This is a rogue like game where you go and do random missions in a kind of stealth/action game thing. It felt more like it should be an action shooter, but I don’t know. This one looked OK, sounded so-so, and just didn’t feel very fun. 5/10

RIPOUT - 8 minutes. Not my favorite sc-fi FPS arena type horror shooter thing. This feels meant for co-op as enemies are bullet sponges. The graphics were decent, as are the sounds, even though I had to turn the motion blur off. I would only get this bundled. There is nothing amazing here, although co-op would likely be OK. 5.5/10

Selaco - 51 minutes. This one is an FPS adventure kind of like Half Life and has decent graphics and atmosphere. The game is tough mainly because you can melt quickly to bullets. Not too bad, although I likely wouldn’t buy it. I would only play bundled. 7/10

Throne of Bone - 5 minutes. This one is an autobattler where you place minions on a board attacking in their order. You also cast spells before combat. This one feels pretty average and looks like a mobile game. It was pretty underwhelming, but I would still play it bundled. 5.5/10

Too Good For School - 14 minutes. This one is a River City Girls clone. It has a lot of style but also very clunky controls and movements. Everything feels like you’re punching air. There seems to be some good in this, but it just overwhelms you with enemies and it doesn’t feel too good in the fighting. I really like the graphics for the menus, but everything else needs some polishing. 5.5/10

Wizordum - 3 minutes. Meh so meh. This is a FPS inspired by Catacomb Abyss and Wolfenstein 3D and almost sounds like Wolfenstein. The graphics are okay, but this one just feels dated and boring. I didn’t feel anything for this other than it played okay enough. 5/10
  

 
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I think Game Pass is overrated. I used to take advantage of the $1 deals but since they took those away I haven't subscribed to it. Most of the games I want to play don't get added to it until they are in the bargain bin, and when it does get a day 1 release I want to play I'd rather buy it and play at my own pace (Starfield).

 
JohnnyCage said:
I think Game Pass is overrated. I used to take advantage of the $1 deals but since they took those away I haven't subscribed to it. Most of the games I want to play don't get added to it until they are in the bargain bin, and when it does get a day 1 release I want to play I'd rather buy it and play at my own pace (Starfield).
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Eh, I appreciate Game Ass... When you buy it in bulk it is (was?) about 7/8 dolla/month, which isn't bad. I'm glad I could play Starfield day 1...err day 5? I would have been disappointed to pay $70 for that. I also get to try out cool games like Vampire Survivors which I probably wouldn't have bought.
 
DD83 said:
PS Plus has 3 free games (as long as you have an active Plus subscription) a month.
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But, there's the catch: you gotta keep the sub active. It's fine if you're gonna play stuff online and bounce b/t games or say finish games and never touch 'em again.

But, for any games you're gonna play for multiple months, like say RPG's - once you're on GamePass/PSN and surpass $70 in subs to surpass the owning of a game with its $70 MSRP price-tags - yeah, you've lost there. Might as well have bought the game - and long-winded RPG's would fit this bill for me.

At $5 a month - yeah, Game Pass was a great deal. All kinds of new titles and often not-cheap-at-time titles, back then. But, once it hit $10 and doubled - no thanks. I'd rather wait a bit and buy games for $12 in Humble Choice's and keep 'em forever.

 
Heh, I've been shouted against for pointing out subscriptions on consoles are only going to get crappier with higher prices; line must go up.

Been anti-console sub since I sold my original 360 and got a PS3.

Wonder if the hero who penned my quote in my sig is still happy with their services?
 
Call of Duty Modern Warfare III open beta code: 3V3GZRD88PRPV

Got it from Xfinity, to use go to callofduty.com/betaredeem    Must use by Oct 16

Should be good for the platform of your choice (PlayStation, Xbox or Steam).  
 

 
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So before I spend some XboxBux on PoopySoft+ for a month to partake of AssCreed:Mirage, i figured I'd fit in some palate cleansers until Thursday. So here are my mini reviews of some steam games I played:

If I rated the game 7 or higher, I'm probably going back to play again at some point. Otherwise, they get tagged as #noplaynomore


  • Glass Masquerade - 6/10 - Puzzle game - Put stained glass shards into frames...over and over and over....
  • Moonring - 8/10 - Do you yearn for Ultima I?, check out this free game...pretty good
  • Lode Runner Legacy - 2/10 - Did you ever want to relive the nostalgia of Lode Runner, but with updated graphics, etc? You did? Well forget about that...well I mean, you can, maybe...but you have to unlock Classic Mode...that's right unlock. The rate at which the rocks fill in (after you blast them out), refill at a rate determined by the refresh rate of your monitor...just, no.
  • Halls of Torment - 6/10 - Have you played Vampire Survivors? No, go play that instead. If you did, would you like to play a knock off with jankier controls and you move like you're in molasses? then this is the game for you. Not bad, not great.
  • The Carribean Sail - 5/10 - Did you ever think, man, I would love to play Oregon Trail....on the Ocean....as a Pirate...you did? I did too...until I got to the janky combat. Remember that old game 'Howitzer Battle' or something like that. You had a cannon and you used your arrow keys to determine the angle of your shell and you tried to destroy your opponent before they did the same? Now imagine if your opponent was an AI with Heat-seeking cannon balls while you struggle with arrow keys to determine the correct angle as Hal 9000's ship moves back and forth while he riddles you with grapeshot. Fun? Maybe....if you like jumper cables latched to your nipples.
  • Circle Empires - 7/10 - Fun, fast little RTS, circles connected by bridges, you start out with 1 circle take over the rest, build troops buildings, etc. Good time waster.
  • Magicite - 5/10 - Do you like Terraria, but are bored by it?...Try Magicite, a Terraria clone, with no tutorial and enjoy figuring out crafting without a guide up.
  • Necesse - 7/10 - Do you like Terraria? Did you try Magicite and thought if only it were a bit better? That's Necesse
  • Deadnaut: Signal Lost - 7.5/10 - Reminiscent of Space Hulk, You inhabit a host body and go on missions to retrieve items/sabotage/blah/blah. Meanwhile blips on the radar are trying to kill you. Missions occur on ships/planets...you have skills, weapons,etc...Pretty fun
  • Faith: The Unholy Trinity - 9/10 - WTF is this game....Weird Atari 2600 graphics, a creepy speak-n-spell demonic voice, I have no clue what I'm supposed to be doing (next). I think you are a priest trying to exorcise some demons/spirits or something....? F if I know....I enjoy it because it's fairly inscrutable.
  • Curious Expedition - 8/10 - Remember Seven Cities of Gold? Source of the Nile (Boardgame)? Yeah I'm old. If you'd like to explore the new world, stealing indiginous peoples treasures and gaining fame and fortune like Phileas Fogg, this is the game for you. Fun little game.
  • Poker Quest:Swords & Spades - 7/10 - Fantasy based move left to right along branching paths, doing battle with monsters and using poker hands to activate items/powers to defeat opponents. Eh, not bad...not really my thing, but fairly well done.
 
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Since Sobhak mentioned Mirage - reviews from AC: Mirage are out. SkillUp was mixed on it (loved old-school gameplay, but the story & character stuff was "meh" to Ralph), but GamingBolt really liked it (8 out of 10).

 
Mirage AKA wait for $5 like EVERY Ubisoft game. My buy prices are usually $15 for gold editions and $5 for everything else. They haven't made anything that is amazing to me in quite a long time, and I was not a huge fan of Beyond Good and Evil.

 
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I just saw this...

I don't need it right now, but I still want to post it.

MfHE7U7.gif


 
For the next 13-ish hours Wargroove 2 is $14.39 on Steam if you own the first one. 15.99 if you don't. You can get the first game for less than $4 on CDKeys. 2 releases tomorrow, MSRP will be $20.

 


nitrosmob said:
Mirage AKA wait for $5 like EVERY Ubisoft game.
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Says the guy who buys VNs about being the ham in a Mom/Sister sandwich...probably at retail!!!

Don't worry, I'll take the bullet on Mirage... The story is gonna suck and I thought Basim was kinda a douchecanoe in Valhalla, so I'm pretty much in it to air-stab people in the neck. I think my expectations are set appropriately.
 
I posted about the Bandai Namco EU giveaway for Man of Medan a while ago...

Apparently there was a requirement to have a linked Steam account.  They must not have had that for the 11-11 giveaway as I received that but not the Man of Medan key.

Oh well, sorry if anyone didn't get a key because of the unknown to me requirement.

 
I dislike all DRM, and I will definitely delay purchasing a title with it.

I'm not an absolutist on the subject, but having been burned by the DRM of yore, I value any game with it a lot less.
 
I think the thing w/ Denuvo is it's another process for the CPU/GPU/system to deal with it and does all kinds of stuff (encrypting & decrypting data; reading/writing on the SSD, which isn't the best thing for a SSD; etc). PC games already have enough problems. So, do we need more?

What I mean by "PC games already have enough problems" - they (PC Games) are often not optimized, dev's and pub's have to test game for lots of hardware and often might miss some hardware variations/combo's that can cause issues, who knows what drivers dev's/pub's are building the game around (esp. if Nvidia's late and it only works on newer drivers), newer games seem to require or recommend a NASA rocket-ship of a computer to run (especially any Unreal Engine 5 stuff right now - see Remnant 2 and Immortals of Aveum), open-world stuff and/or tons of details can slam performance (especially UbiSoft games), Shader Stutters problems & Area Transitional problems, you got some games requiring a game-service client-app running in the background to run many games (Steam, Epic, Battle.Net, etc), Ray-Tracing and Path-Tracing is demanding, etc etc.

Yeah, we really don't need Denuvo on top of these problems.

 
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Been playing Spiritfarer.

Fun game, but man, it really slows to a crawl at the end.  I don't know if it's just because the last bits were all added later in the game's life, but it's just wait around for what feels like an hour or more for a mission, do it in 20 minutes, then back to waiting.  There's nothing to do between missions unless I want to accumulate more stuff I won't use and don't need.

Maybe it's meant to simulate life.  First part is a little slow but there's plenty to do, then everyone is wanting you to do stuff, then you're down to a couple friends and you sit around waiting for hours to do anything.

 
DD83 said:
Been playing Spiritfarer.

Fun game, but man, it really slows to a crawl at the end. I don't know if it's just because the last bits were all added later in the game's life, but it's just wait around for what feels like an hour or more for a mission, do it in 20 minutes, then back to waiting. There's nothing to do between missions unless I want to accumulate more stuff I won't use and don't need.

Maybe it's meant to simulate life. First part is a little slow but there's plenty to do, then everyone is wanting you to do stuff, then you're down to a couple friends and you sit around waiting for hours to do anything.
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Biggest thing that keeps me from playing this game is it's not called Spiritfarter.
 
DD83 said:
Been playing Spiritfarer.

Fun game, but man, it really slows to a crawl at the end. I don't know if it's just because the last bits were all added later in the game's life, but it's just wait around for what feels like an hour or more for a mission, do it in 20 minutes, then back to waiting. There's nothing to do between missions unless I want to accumulate more stuff I won't use and don't need.

Maybe it's meant to simulate life. First part is a little slow but there's plenty to do, then everyone is wanting you to do stuff, then you're down to a couple friends and you sit around waiting for hours to do anything.
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It's a slow burn, for sure. It helps if you use a guide to know which resources you should begin grinding so that you don't just come to a halt in progress.

I really enjoyed the story though. It took me a little while to understand what was happening, but I thought it was worth it in the end.

 
hal said:
It's a slow burn, for sure. It helps if you use a guide to know which resources you should begin grinding so that you don't just come to a halt in progress.

I really enjoyed the story though. It took me a little while to understand what was happening, but I thought it was worth it in the end.
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The only halt I ever came to was when I had no missions to do because I was just waiting for the next mission. I had plenty of resources, that was never an issue. I don't think I gathered any resources the last 6+ hours because I didn't need anything.

The game up to the last 2-3 passengers wasn't really slow at all. When I played I'd go to a new region, explore, do missions, complete storylines, harvest resources, etc. It's just the last 2-3 passengers when it slowed to a crawl. There were no missions, all my buildings were as maxed as possible, I had more than enough raw resources for anything. It was just "wait until the game triggered a mission". I wound up just sailing from one point to the next and coming and going from the boat trying to get it to trigger the next mission. I enabled the game to run in the background just so I could do other things on the computer waiting for the next mission to trigger. I wound up not even completing a mission set because there was no point. The passenger's "storyline" didn't have an "ending" and the only reward I was getting were resources I didn't need.

Like I said, I liked the game and the story, it was just the last bit that felt super slow. Unless I just screwed up and I could've triggered the start of those last few passengers storylines earlier than I did but didn't notice.

 
Coulda just been me then. I took 49 hours to complete it. I ran into at least one situation where someone needed a bunch of something from a certain tree and that caught me off guard. I was min'ing when I shoulda been maxing.

I didn't play it until they released the Farewell Edition, so I can't say for sure, but you're probably right: there is a lull at the end where I assume they added the new characters.

 
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