Thank you for the Wolf Mission Timer
By
10101,
Posted on: 2005-02-22 21:32 in CoH and CoV General Discussions
I didn't PL on WW's. But I don't see why everyone gets butthurt at people who do
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I think people misunderstand why developers interfere and make changes. I could care less how fast someone earns influence. But I am concerned when someone is doing somethingg "unfun" in order to gain levels quickly and thereby bypassing other, more interesting content. Admittedly, "fun" and "unfun" are completely subjective, so people can disagree.
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What about the people who ENJOY herding wolves? I've ran a few and had a blast doing it, much bigger rush than anything else in this game including the AV fights.
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Yeah, his reply makes no sense to me. You're playing a game, TO HAVE FUN. You find a part of it you like doing over and over for one reason or another (ie- actually leveling is more fun than identical missions over and over) - and the owner of the game decides that you aren't having fun? Er, huh? Why would they be playing it that way if it wasnt fun? People CANCEL when they arent having fun, they dont 'herd' wolves- they herd wolves because they want to level, and leveling is fun, it's the only progress you can make in a loot-less game, there is no other reward at all..
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For all the ppl saying the 1 hour timer for this mission will make it too hard because of the AV really need to try the mission.
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Oh sure, its easy if you herd them up...
But you get a mob stuck in a tree (happens VERY frequently on my outdoor missions), and you are hosed. CoH has hands down the best guides and customer service I have ever seen in a MMOG, but they cant always guarantee a quick response to a bug mission.
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For all the ppl saying the 1 hour timer for this mission will make it too hard because of the AV really need to try the mission.
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Oh sure, its easy if you herd them up...
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Which kind of implies the mission is easiest to complete for the people that had the least interest in actually finishing this mission. 
Seriously, we're not all burn tankers and regen scrappers. Even ignoring the AV, wolves can do nasty things to us squishy types, and the map is a Perez-type outdoorsy one, which is easy to lose stragglers in. I don't see why making the mission timer two or so hours would hurt the intended goal of the timer, and it would make life easier on the sub-l33t.
Also, on the True Gamer comments, everyone knows that the True Gamers split into the Orthodox Gamers of the Scripted Plot and the Reformed Gamers of the Crunched Number after the Great Schism of Universal Gamerhood. 
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The main reason that people powerlevel is that the game forces us to be become level whores. I have been playing the game for almost a year, as a casual gamer, and the game really hasn't changed that much. Everything that they have added is directly related to levels, the only reason to play the game is to level up. That problem, yes its a problem, can be hung squarely in the devs closet. If there was something to do that was special and fun at certain levels, and only those levels it would slow down PLing, but the only thing to do when you level up is get new enhancement slots or a new power. There is no reason for anyone to sit around and grind away if there is an alternative, you don't really miss much, just cookie cutter missions and perhaps a badge but exemplaring(sp?) took care of the missed badge thing. If the devs took the time to make the game fun at all levels then I believe that most people would play the game instead of PL. I also believe that there are a certain segment of the gamers that will PL however they can and there is nothing they, the devs, can do about it.
Before anyone tells me to play a different game, I would like to point out that I love this game. It has, in my opinion, a tremendous amount of potential that is still untapped.
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/sign.
This is the 2nd coming of this thread, last time some of us posted here it was moderated out of existence.
Different strokes for different folks. I didn't use the Wolves for any PL'ing, but I was on a few of the missions. It is the same as crafting to me: Repetive tasks of farming materials so you can better a character. Some people like Crafting, some don't. But...it is risk vs reward: You still can die, and Time keeps slipping slipping away, just like in crafting. If someone wants to lose 20- hours of their life in an instance and is not bothering anybody else, they deserve the reward of that repetivite activity. Just like someone knitting a sweater. I don't like knitting, but many enjoy it.
They just nerfed knitting in my opinion. Oh well.....
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If it isn't timed, you can "repeat" the mission as much as you want. The game engine can't tell how many times you "started" the mission. Only how many times you've completed it.
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If the system carries enough bitfields on a player to track dozens of "how many clockwork gears have you killed" type integers, it can certainly carry a "how many times has this mission been reset" integer. The coding is trivial.
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It doesn't track that you killed one *particular" wolf, it just tracks numbers. Only specific bagdges (after completing missions, BTW) happen for specific named mobs.
The biggest reason they can't do it another way is disconnects. When you disconnect, all of your mission in play reset (but timed ones keep counting down.)
This really was the only way to keep farming down.
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Or they could, as I suggest, have taken some measures to prevent a total mission reset by tracking a few numbers, and this includes preventing total resets when you get disconnected.
Infinity:
Ellen, 50 MA/Inv Scr
February Night, 14 Ice/Ice Blstr
Guardian:
SilverSwordmaid, 29 Kat/Rgn Scr
Vicious Killer, 33 Emp/Enrgy Def
Electromagness, 40 Rad/Rad Def
Sense of Humor, 50 Fire/En Tank
Virtue:
Kickfest, 50 MA/SR Scr
Freedom:
Glorious Ending, 29 EM/DA Bru
I'm going to jump in with my 2 cents....
If people have ever seen my posts, I am very positive about CoH and the direction the developers are taking it. I am not a power-leveler (I don't think), but I could be classified as a CoH addict. I enjoy missions, the cameradirie and the excitement of battle, to name just a few things. I do level fairly quickly, but it's because I put so darn many hours into the game.
I am sad to see the wolfie mission timed. I have always derived a lot of fun out of it, even when repeating it. To me there is a real challenge as a tanker in trying to get and maintain aggro of tons of wolfies, especially since the changes were made to them (darn boulders!). I don't think having it in the game as is was hurting anyone. The people who mindlessly plow through the levels won't be the ones who stay anyway. But I will truly miss the ability to run through a couple maps of wolfies when the mood strikes me.
Please, devs, rethink this issue and remove the timer.
Thank you.
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I think people misunderstand why developers interfere and make changes. I could care less how fast someone earns influence. But I am concerned when someone is doing somethingg "unfun" in order to gain levels quickly and thereby bypassing other, more interesting content. Admittedly, "fun" and "unfun" are completely subjective, so people can disagree.
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Statesman, why would anyone be herding wolves if the content is so much fun? Do you block people from using the elevator in office buildings because, in your opinion, the stairs are more fun?
Don't you think its a little illogical that you have to force people to play your "fun" content? If its so much fun, wouldn't people have never started repeating the WW missions?
No offence, Jack, but I don't buy it. Your comment here basically says, "You're going to do what I think is fun, and you'll like it!"
Well, chalk another one up for the PL whiners. How about our lvl, and what we spend time doing is delegated to us, so we are having "fun"?
-Oh wait, its already going that way.
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Well, chalk another one up for the PL whiners.
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After about 20 refernces to anti-PL folks as "whiners"...
The whining (post-wolf-timer) is now coming from the herders who can't herd any more. So technically, the "whiners" are now the ones who used to complain about the whiners.
The bright side of this, however: if you really think the devs are just at the mercy of "whiners", you're now in the drivers' seat, according to your theory.
I agree Stateman and his Carebear crew telling us what is fun is uncalled for. Many of us played our main from 1-50 with all missions, did all the TF's all the Trials and spent 1000 hours doing so.
Many of use even spent 500+ hours on toon # 2 getting it to what ever level.
Now Stateman can sit at home or at work hugging his carebear and MAKE a toon any level he wishes. As a DEV im sure he doesn't make a level 1 and then play it all the way up to where he he go into eden and "test" the content. Yes I agree it is his right as a game creater to have the opition to make a toon and poof there it is.
Now for us going on toon #3 or 4 (even #7), the "fun" of killing the av for the 100th time, going into that cave the 100th time, killing 10000 monkeys for the 100th time is OVER.
SO statesman whats next timed Family missions? Timed Freakshow missions? Timed Hydra missions?? Timed Street killing? OR is NCSOFT going to sell "advanced" toons that you can buy.... level 20 for $19.99...with a free carebear badge!!(can anyone remember UO doing that same thing!!)
Fun for me is being able to level my OTHER own toons any way i see fit. Weather it be wolfs, snowmen, hydra, monsters or what ever. IF a carebear gets upset over what I am doing so oh well! maybe you can sit on Stateman's lap at the next convention and he will find more ways to make "fun"
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I think people misunderstand why developers interfere and make changes. I could care less how fast someone earns influence. But I am concerned when someone is doing somethingg "unfun" in order to gain levels quickly and thereby bypassing other, more interesting content. Admittedly, "fun" and "unfun" are completely subjective, so people can disagree.
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Yes, I'm guessing that States love to fight against trolls, hellions
and skulls more often that he does anything higher than lvl 20.
Personally, I don't have a prob with PL. I use it to get past
stuff I've seen numerous times. I mean....how many times
can you arrest Frostfire in the Hollows? ..and who keeps
letting that little [censored] out of jail?!?
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I think people misunderstand why developers interfere and make changes. I could care less how fast someone earns influence. But I am concerned when someone is doing somethingg "unfun" in order to gain levels quickly and thereby bypassing other, more interesting content. Admittedly, "fun" and "unfun" are completely subjective, so people can disagree.
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If you're concerned about people doing "unfun" things and gaining levels quickly, then you should probably scrub the hazard zones and street mobs. Make missions the sole source of xp and maybe only timed ones at that! Not to be snarky, but that's the logical conclusion of that line of thinking.
I only participated in WW herdering a couple of times (and by "participate" I mean stand around with nothing useful to do) but frankly it yields less xp/hour than just patrolling the Portal Corp. parking lot. This change seems like an inadvertent nerf to Invuln tankers.
But it's not just XP. The alternatives for the 40+ crowd include such unfun missions as Sappers, Orenbega and AVs. Why bust your hump on a mission only to be told, "you were not on this mission long enough to earn a bonus," sometimes even if it's YOUR mission? Might as well just streetsweep.
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I think people misunderstand why developers interfere and make changes. I could care less how fast someone earns influence. But I am concerned when someone is doing somethingg "unfun" in order to gain levels quickly and thereby bypassing other, more interesting content. Admittedly, "fun" and "unfun" are completely subjective, so people can disagree.
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Yes, I'm guessing that States love to fight against trolls, hellions
and skulls more often that he does anything higher than lvl 20.
Personally, I don't have a prob with PL. I use it to get past
stuff I've seen numerous times. I mean....how many times
can you arrest Frostfire in the Hollows? ..and who keeps
letting that little [censored] out of jail?!?
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What if they had this thing after you did the Frostfire mission that you could appear as a witness in his trial for the prosecution, and the trial would mostly be scritped, but you could give your own answers to certain question and, at the end of a month, say, if they determined that someone had given good enough answers to convict him, they would give the full transcript of the court case including that person's answers on their website and that would be the end of Frostfire. Locked up for life. Or, if he did appear again, it would be in entirely different missions and there would be some backstory about how he broke out of jail.
In other words, what if, with the participation of Cryptic employees (so it couldn't just be gamed) there was a way to make a real difference, even if in a minor way, to the world?
Infinity:
Ellen, 50 MA/Inv Scr
February Night, 14 Ice/Ice Blstr
Guardian:
SilverSwordmaid, 29 Kat/Rgn Scr
Vicious Killer, 33 Emp/Enrgy Def
Electromagness, 40 Rad/Rad Def
Sense of Humor, 50 Fire/En Tank
Virtue:
Kickfest, 50 MA/SR Scr
Freedom:
Glorious Ending, 29 EM/DA Bru
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I agree Stateman and his Carebear crew telling us what is fun is uncalled for.
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Now that is not the smartest thing to do. Insulting the man responsible for making this game. Not really called for either.
Not to mention that the insult itself misses all ground in relation to the decisions being ranted at in this thread.
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Many of us played our main from 1-50 with all missions, did all the TF's all the Trials and spent 1000 hours doing so.
Many of use even spent 500+ hours on toon # 2 getting it to what ever level.
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This is not meant as a personal attack, but ... why bother? I mean you complain that spending thousands of hours on playing the game gets boring. I assume you started an alt because there is nothing else to do once you reach level 50, so why bother to try to get it to level 50 as quickly as possible? You already know there is nothing to do at that level, and unless you are the tanker doing the herding it has to be the most boring activity in any game I can think of: sitting in an out of the way corner and, well, read a book or something.
Of course I may be entirely off here, but from the way wolf herding has been described that is what it amounts to when it is used for powerleveling? And all that only to get another character that has nothing else to do?
slightly silly diatribe snipped
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Now for us going on toon #3 or 4 (even #7), the "fun" of killing the av for the 100th time, going into that cave the 100th time, killing 10000 monkeys for the 100th time is OVER.
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We got that already yes. The question remains is: why do you insist on going through it yet another time. knowing there is no pot of gold at the end of the rainbow?
Getting your seventh alt was clearly no fun for you. Having a level 50 character was not fun either. I am honestly confused why you insist on creating an 8th character and then use the quickest, least involved, play style to make that character not fun to play also?
Personally, I have no stake in this. I do not play remotely often enough to get even close to these praetorian missions, and frankly this whole discussion only confuses me. Both the intensity of the powerleveling is good and of the powerleveling is bad arguments. But I can not help being curious after the why of it.
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This is not meant as a personal attack, but ... why bother?
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Why does anyone bother telling us how we should be playing? You admit yourself you've never really experienced the late game.
I'll tell you why I bother. I have played all the way up natural, and I have done my share of pl'ing too. My ultimate goal is to try every power set on every AT with every combo, to see which is most enjoyable and effective for me. Killing hellions over and over and watching my character run (slowly) back and forth to contacts, missions, etc. is no longer "fun" for me. I prefer to skip at least til I get a travel power. Been there done that, probably 15-20 times or more.
Stop trying to tell me that I'm an idiot or I don't care about content etc., or whatever your holier-than-thou argument is, I don't care how you play, why do you care how I do?
Look, this game is all about repetition. Doesn't matter if you are herding wolves or street sweeping, hazard zones or door missions. You are going to do the same thing over and over. Rewards in this game are new powers and levels. The excitement of planning and choosing new powers AND THEN SEEING HOW THEY WORK is my fun. I want the option of doing it how I wish, not how statesman says so.
I like the option of grouping with friends and standing around and BSing while getting exp, it can be a social thing. Or maybe I want to get in the herding mission, stand in a safe place, and go throw a load of laundry in. Make dinner.
Maybe the next night *I* will be the one doing the herding/killing for other friends. We enjoy it.
And to whoever above was complaining about how the roles have reversed and the pl'ers are now the whiners. We are just trying to tell you we won't stop. Most of us have found better persons/places/things to herd anyway. When all else fails, we will herd in the streets. You think a few tells and broadcasts bug you? haha
Don't [censored] in your own watering hole.
Mind your own business people.
50 Heroes:
Inv/EM, Ice/Device, Inv/Fire, Fire/EM, Fire/Kin, Ill/Rad, Grav/Storm, Spines/Regen, DM/SR
50 Villains:
EM/Regen
Founding member of Old School, Triumph
I have to agree, while I have never PLed myself or herded WWs, the idea of making this mission timed just because others are using it as a tool is counter-intuitive.
Any mission can be used to do this. ANY mission. Especially with the new difficulty slider. So placing a timer on this mission to me is just an unwise developer decision. Where do you stop?
Me and my one star rating are gonna chime in here and uneloquently say:
This stinks!
You (States) said just a few months ago that you don't care how fast people get to level 50. I believe it was during the interview for MMO radio. And let me point out one other group of facists who declared what was fun and unfun... they were calle Nazis. You already removed them from the game. Scared of the competition?
/gives states a raspberry
If you want people to go through your content instead of PLing, then you should add some more. I've already done all of it (save FBZ) once, most twice, and don't really care to do it again. I thought the Kheldian was gonna have some unique content, but so far it was just my first contact... rather skimpy.
-Junction Boy
Sometimes I feel like I'm stranded on an island populated only by myself and a bunch of viscious, retarded monkeys. Don't laugh... you're one of the viscious, retarded monkeys.
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No trouble at all really. What other reason is there to adjust the mission other than the fact that people were leveling alts faster than he (or maybe the accountants) cared for.
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Well at least your honest about mischaracterizing people.
It's to combat rampant powerlevelling, not to "remove fun from people who enjoy powerlevelling." Every change made in an MMO is bound to make things less fun for some people. That doesn't mean every change is MEANT to deprive people of having fun.
This is where gross misrepresntation such as the kind you foster is revealed. Thanks for being honest about it.
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As you said, he stated himself that not everyone finds the same things fun. Is it okay that people don't find the same things fun as long as he finds it fun?
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Yes it's definitely ok if some people different things fun. The problem with rampant powerlevelling is that it makes it hard for people like me and many others to legitimately group and do missions together. I would not be surprised to see the level difference for XP reviewed at some point in the future.
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You don't think it is a bit hypocritical to say "No two people find the same thing fun" and then say "I'm changing this because it's not fun"?
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What I find hypocritical is that you admit you're being dishonest but expect anyone to take you seriously. Why would anyone want to try to argue what you twist? Not me.
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So either he being a hypocrite (I do not think this is the case) or he is trying to sugar coat the real reason behind it (people leveling too fast for his taste).
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Nah I think it's just you that's being hypocritical. Maybe one day when you're ready for an honest conversation, you might have something to contribute. Right now, though, I think your comments at least have some comedic value.
My only complaint here is that it is a have/have not change. Whatever is the decision it should be uniform for the whole player base. Allowing leet SGs their PL-ing while new people coming up cannot have them creates two classes. Bad idea.
this change is complete BULL imo
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So uh..doing the same wolf mission again and again is heroic then?
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About as Heroic as dropping a bomb at people's feet for loitering.
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Yep, again I agree with you. As even RR said himself it can be difficult to put an AV team together at times, then you actually have to defeat the AV, and the wolves, and click the glowies.
The time constraint is, as has been pointed out, not going to do a thing to curb PL'ing and only puts undue constraints on those who are just trying to finish a mission.
I really don't see what the devs were trying to accomplish here. If anything, they need to remove Shadowhunter from the mission to give people a shot beating him fairly and not miss out on a badge because of the timer. It is silly really.
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I agree with many of your comments here. It seems maybe you are interested in contributing after all. This helps temporarily, and really, we already see some measures dont on the wolf missions just by virtue of the changes to the wolves themselves, makes it a little harder to herd (requires more support). But the problem lies with the game mechanics more than any mission. I am just glad that a particular mission that's been singled out as the pre-eminent powerleveling mission, has been given a stopgap fix for. I still think that a 1 hour time limit isn't long enough. That's shorter than most timed missions in the game from lvl 20 and up.
I'd love to see a revamped Shadowhunter mission but I'll accept this change for now.
What I don't get is that so many people who advocate powerlevelling claim there's no harm. There is harm. To the game, and to the players who have alot less people to group with. I don't think even most anti-powerlevelling people have a problem with limited powerlevelling. But it's rampant in this game. I suspect we'll see a change in the XP level limit at some point. It might be 5 levels across the board or something, or maybe all purple mobs, regardless of how many levels above con they are, generate the same XP.
FYI- this isnt just wolf missions, it's all board train missions.
I was playing a max difficulty rikti board train miss. the other day, we sweeped it, very challenging, almost all bosses. We did no herding, just fought each and every mob and clicked no glowies. Then we left. Reset it, came back in, started fighting. After about 5 minutes, we all get booted out of the mission and a FAILED message. No timer was ever visible.
lame.
EDIT: er, how does it make it hard to find people to group with for regualr missions? I dont get it. Find people who like doing the missions you like doing- that's what people who liked these type of missions were doing, it is not hard.
As for annoying pl request tells, that is a different issue- those people are harrassing you, which is indeed wrong, report them and /ignore them.
Moore, the mission you were probably playing was the "War wall" one..at least I think that's what it's called. There's a machine in there you have to prevent from being destroyed by Rikti; if it's destroyed, the mission is failed.
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I think people misunderstand why developers interfere and make changes. I could care less how fast someone earns influence. But I am concerned when someone is doing somethingg "unfun" in order to gain levels quickly and thereby bypassing other, more interesting content. Admittedly, "fun" and "unfun" are completely subjective, so people can disagree.
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Oh I think we know why developers interfere. They are out of touch with the silent majority. I could almost agree with your statement of [ QUOTE ]
But I am concerned when someone is doing somethingg "unfun" in order to gain levels quickly and thereby bypassing other, more interesting content.
[/ QUOTE ] except that once you've hit level 50 and done the missions there is no more interesting content. The thing I hate most about leveling my alts is that the missions are the same. So it becomes an issue of doing something less boring (ie wolves) then doing something more boring (repeated content).