My opinion regarding the 1.03 patch (very long wall of text)
I am aware that this forum doesn't really take too well on opnions/reviews on the 1.03 patch now. At the same time some of you already read this and believed it was well written compared to other opinons and reviews so I decided post here also since it's my favorite BF2 forum...
If my thread is in the wrong board or should not be here at all, I apologize. Take the action you feel that's needed :)
Many of you believe this sort of topic is too late now since the patch has now been released for a week and a lot of opinions have been said about the patch. I would like to respond that many of these were post immediately after the patch and so many posters did not have enough time to evalute the changes or features to be savvy about it. I planned on writing about this sometime this week and a week after the patch to judge and express my opinion about it without too much errors on my side.
I am somewhat disappointed with the patch.
That's the main theme of what my review of this patch is about. 2 months ago, EA recognized and affirmed that fact that since the release of BF2, they have performed poorly at maintain and providing support for BF2 players and customers:
No surprise, the very first patch caused memory leaks which split BF2 servers in half:
One half would revert back to 1.00 while the other half would still stick to 1.01, you actually had BF2 players and servers running the game with different versions. It took 1.02 patch which came out in middle of July to unite the two again:
2 patches in less than a month after BF2 was released, bad sign or a sign of fast response and support?
Continouing on, the roots of my grudge against BF2's testers and support team lie in the BF2 demo: Gulf of Oman. Here the red/blue tag bug first appeared along with the disappointment of the server browsing system.
The red/blue tag for me is not only a bug, but also as a sign of how poor DICE has been doing when it comes to game support. This damn bug has been with us since the demo, and has been untouched by the "glorious" 1.03 patch. In fact, someone please confirm or check me on this, I don't ever remember DICE mentioning the red/blue tag bug in their updates and news.
This is the most common bug people are experiencing, check the forums, check the help topic, people are posting about this bug and there is no hope to fix it other than rejoining the server.
Then probably the most annoying bug, I introduce you the flag capture bug. This bug prevents CP from switching to its captureres even though their flag clearly shows his hoisted up completely. During this time, enemies still can spawn and clear out the flag captureres making this bug very fustrating to the victims.
If I remember correctly, this bug started to appear in 1.00 and has so far not been fixed.
Next is my favorite: A bug that makes your aircraft mark empty vehicles as a hostile live vehicle. It's somewhat complex, but in a nutshell: There are times when your aircraft in bomb mode marks a vehicle indicating its a foe. However, the vehicle is actually empty. Like the other 1.00 bugs, this hasn't been fixed yet and I don't think it will ever be since only a few have expressed this bug.
Read on here for more info with screenshots:
http://boards.gamefaqs.com/gfaqs/gen...topic=23925310
Finally, the last subtle yet annoying bug: The Basic/Veteran badge bug. This bug sometimes happens when the player recieves two badges of the same family at the same time. In rare or uncommon cases, BFHQ will only recognize the superior badge (veteran) and ignore the other badge (basic).
Before BF2 1.03, this bug would be quickly brushed off since it didn't show in BFHQ and back then, no one could've thought of being a 1st sergeant. Well after 1.03, people have been ranting that they have met or exceeded the requirements of 1st sergeant / sergeant major but did not get promoted to that rank.
The fact that these bugs weren't fixed make the patch already make me disappointed about it already. These bugs are common, has been brought up several times, and are annoying. Yet DICE/EA seems to have absolutely no clue about it since they never mentioned those bugs above. Hopefully those official threads about the negatives of 1.03 and asking issues and problems from players will bring light to these bugs.
There are some features, tweaks, and changes most never heard or cared about, here are some which I find to be pointless:
Added new soldier artwork in BFHQ: Anyone had a problem with the old ones?
Added name of video director to credits: ...
Fixed an issue where parachuting soldiers could not be healed: ...
Set some wheels on jets and helpcopters to stronger armor to prevent them from being destroyed instantly by AT missiles: IF AN AT MISSLE HITS THE WHEELS OF AIRCRAFTS OR HELICOPTERS, IT DESERVES TO BE DESTROYED.
Adding the welcome screen: Quite useless, I believe in order to read the update/news, your game will minimize and then will open a website to it.
Mini-map able to zoom in and out without player's consent: somewhat annoying, I now have to readjust the zoom because I pressed certain keys that have absolutely nothing do with the mini-map.
I can tell you that NO ONE has asked for these fixes and changes. In fact, some of them made BF2 worse such as that pop up welcome screen and the dynamic mini-map. Instead of being fully under our control, certain actions will trigger the map to zoom in and out at times where the player doesn't want it to happen. Being in or changing seat in vehicles, pressing the TAB key, and using radio commands will reset the level of zoom in the mini-map. No one suggested this, and it ruined one of the features that actually worked. If DICE just had to fix something about the mini-map, it must be the flag icon placements. Sometimes these mini-maps are very inaccurate at pointing out where the flag is. You might actually be under the flag icon but the flag is actually 20-40 meters away from you. This affects most to people who usually play one size map (16, 32, and 64) then decide to try out the other flavors.
From this very large patch, its inevitable for the patch to give birth to some bugs. I expected some bugs, you know, a typical bug where it might hinder a fraction of gameplay or justa small bump people have to get used to. However, I never expected the bugs would be this ridiculous and obvious:
Prefix bug: Ah! what's so special about this bug is that if any of you use prefixes, it's the first bug to ever come up when starting up BF2. I cannot imagine how testers could not have detected or noticed this bug, IT'S SHOWING RIGHT IN FRONT OF THEIR EYES AT THE START OF THE GAME. It only took one day, one day after the patch for people to find this bug, and these people never were payed or bothered to find bugs. What does that show about DICE's testers?
The Promotion meter: Another bug that should've been quickly noticed. People who have instantly promoted from the revised rank system will experience this. Basically the bar will not work until you get promoted again. For me, this bar will never work until 6 months later once I hit 50,000 GP...assuming if I'll ever play BF2 then.
I have not confirmed this one but multiple users are experiencing it. Apparently the skins of some parts of the mountain ranges behind the PLA airbase in Dalian Plant is now gone. This would sometimes cause aircrafts to hit a solid invisible object without knowing it. Going to try that out tomorrow.
New bugs that are hard to see, detect, and notice, I would understand and be more tolerant of them. However, when the bug can be actually be seen by users and players, it makes you wonder wheter the testers are blind or too shy/lazy to report it.
If anyone did comprehend the joke, this section's about the bugs/problems DICE claimed to have fixed or tweaked but in which most players do not notice at all.
Server browser: You would think after making 5 games that is nearly played the same, they would finally make a server browser that's actually fast and optimized? This has been a problem from the start since the demo. DICE claimed they have fixed and improved it, but I don't see any improvements from the previous version. Anyone else?
Looking at the official Battlefield 2 forums for UK, it seems that only six selected filters work. So if you mark/enable 7 filters, one of them won't work which can explain why the server browser is showing servers that are full.
Improved the behavior of AA missiles when locked on an enemy: I have been in the recieving end of missles more than I have been firing them and from experience, I have to say that they are still performing the same. These missles still don't like the taste or odor of jet fumes spilling out of the aircraft's engines and they really love to do some neat tricks by going straight at the target but then abrubtly doing a corkscrew and diving down to the ocean.
Point: They are unreliable still. If they actually improved it, it seems helicopters are getting the most of the punishment out of this than aircrafts.
Because DICE claims to have addressed these problems, they can justify the outcry from players still complaining about these issues by stating: Patch 1.03/1.10 (Yes, they're the same, now can you comprehend the joke?) has already addressed this issue. Hopefully they won't pull that crap on us. Again, I believe the fault lies on the testers, how the hell could they not see that there is absolutely no difference with the changes?!
Do their stinger actually hit aircrafts and helicopters most of the time? Is thier server browsers silky smooth that none of them need to move to All Seeying Eye?
I seem to have only pointed out the negative features and bugs that this patch has brought or not improved. Yes, I cannot deny that, everything you just read were flaws, mistakes, and errors the patch has brought. But like every bad things, there are good things:
Restricting/Discouraging the use of UH-60: As all of you regular players know, the blackhawk wasn't a transport: it was a flying demon from hell spitting millions of deadly rounds from its ears. Well the demon is longer no more since now, it's difficult to cap flags because the flag will only take one person into account of the vehicle. This exposes the UH-60 from constant ground fire and drastically reduces the rate of points the UH-60 crew gets.
Restricting/discouraging the exploit of stat padding: When people first read the news that in order to stop stat padding, it would limit the amount of teamwork points the player would recieve if he keeps reammoing, reviving, or healing the same player, many took it as a bad solution toward the end of stat padding. So far, I have not read or faced any complaints about this restriction, and so far, I have not seen any stat padders so I believe this restriction is working, an extraordinary feat when compared to other fixes and tweaks in this patch.
Severely reducing the damage of ramming when at certain speeds: Well, people kept whining about how easy it was to TK their teammates simply because their vehicle was moving at a snail speed. I for one has teamkilled more people than ramming my enemies with the previous ramming physics in vehicles. Therefore I find this to be a welcome change at the cost of not being to ram foes very well. I believe this is one of the few things BF2 players much accept: either not easily TKing people with their vehicle and having difficulties of achieving road kills or being able to road kill enemies easily and easily and commonly TKing their own teammates.
With all the ranting, complaints, and pointing out flaws of 1.03/1.10, it's a nice change to bring light and attention of the good things that the patch has brought out. These 3 changes has changed the gameplay drastically to a better level. No longer can USMC capture six flags under a minute by using the blackhawk in Mashtuur and Shongua, no longer can incapable players stat pad to be on par with average players, and no more are the fustrations players get simply because someone jumped right in front of their vehicle or roadkilling them that was beyond their control.
Wake Island 2007: Wake island was the map for the multiplayer demo and was one of the most popular maps for BF1942 which was released about 4 years ago. It was highly popular due to the balance in vehicles and infantry. This map had an aircraft carrier, a destroyer, several planes, few tanks and APCs, and lots of jeeps to get around the island. Despite the large variety of vehicles, the balance was perfect, no side had extraordinary advantage and it was fun to play.
The 1.03 patch released the remake of this renouned map hoping that BF2 players will have the same enjoyment to that of the players in BF1942 experienced.
Well, I want to ask this question to those that played BF1942: Is this map as much fun as it was in BF1942?
Now I want to ask every BF2 players: Is this map balanced or does one side seem to have an advantage?
For me, it seems the the experience, gameplay, and fun factor for this map is similar as those of other BF2 maps. I notice that vehicles and aircrafts play a larger role in this map than those in BF1942. It's no surprise if what I said is correct, after all, jets and armors here are a lot faster and more powerful than their counterparts in BF1942. I am also aware that you can't enter most of the buildings as you could in BF1942 which brings me to the question: Why? Isn't BF2's engine a lot better than BF1942's engine? Shouldn't it be able to handle all buildings being accessible? Or were DICE mappers and modelers too damn lazy to make them?
Furthermore, the heavy role and utilization of vehicles imply that DICE testers have not extensively tested this map and that DICE has failed to take notice that the role and power of BF2 vehicles are way different from their counterparts. If they do realize that BF2 vehicles are a lot faster and stronger, it seems then DICE was too lazy to balance the map and instead, placed the vehicles that corresponds to the vehicles that were available in BF1942.
To me, this map feels very much ported with no optimizations and no tweaking to fit the standard of BF2. Regurgitation is a better description.
If you somehow manage to go and read through the wall of text, I commend you, you truly have a good attention span for something that many would flee on, like skunks and prune juice. From my review, it's seems that I do not have a favorable view of this patch and believe BF2 has taken a step backwards. The former is true, the the latter is not. The patch 1.03 has fixed some issues that hindered on the fun and gameplay for players, the most notable one being discouraging the use of UH-60 whoring, reduction of the number of accidental teamkills from vehicles, restricting and discouraging stat padding, and awarding points to certain classes that deserves it (Engineers and Spec. Ops).
Nevertheless DICE has showed some lack of testing and poor feedback, assuming they even had testers judging and observing the patch. As of right now, my confidence in DICE's support and testing team has shattered, I had high hopes for this patch of eliminating the old bugs and optimizing/tweaking certain aspects of the game such as the game browser. The latter alone would've immideately make me favorable of this patch, but unfortantely it has not.
I hope you enjoyed reading this review and I hope some of my short dry humor broke your boredom time to time.
If my thread is in the wrong board or should not be here at all, I apologize. Take the action you feel that's needed :)
Once a upon a time...
I am somewhat disappointed with the patch.
That's the main theme of what my review of this patch is about. 2 months ago, EA recognized and affirmed that fact that since the release of BF2, they have performed poorly at maintain and providing support for BF2 players and customers:
No surprise, the very first patch caused memory leaks which split BF2 servers in half:
One half would revert back to 1.00 while the other half would still stick to 1.01, you actually had BF2 players and servers running the game with different versions. It took 1.02 patch which came out in middle of July to unite the two again:
2 patches in less than a month after BF2 was released, bad sign or a sign of fast response and support?
Vet. Bug: n00b! i survived a civil war of 2 patches shortly after the crowning of Battlefielastan the 2nd and that recent huge war of 103. So stop saying BS lies that you mooned the testers and devs in front of their eyes.
Prefix Bug: Better than you could do, I dare you to make player TK the devs.
Vet. Bug: The freak? boy, It doesn't matter who they are, I made players tk their own teammates ever since they played the demo. 100,000 teamkills total if you didn't know. Especially G3 whores since they kill so much. So go back to your Global.con file freak.
Plus, if I do what you dared me to do, then players will actually ADORE me.
Prefix Bug: Better than you could do, I dare you to make player TK the devs.
Vet. Bug: The freak? boy, It doesn't matter who they are, I made players tk their own teammates ever since they played the demo. 100,000 teamkills total if you didn't know. Especially G3 whores since they kill so much. So go back to your Global.con file freak.
Plus, if I do what you dared me to do, then players will actually ADORE me.
The red/blue tag for me is not only a bug, but also as a sign of how poor DICE has been doing when it comes to game support. This damn bug has been with us since the demo, and has been untouched by the "glorious" 1.03 patch. In fact, someone please confirm or check me on this, I don't ever remember DICE mentioning the red/blue tag bug in their updates and news.
This is the most common bug people are experiencing, check the forums, check the help topic, people are posting about this bug and there is no hope to fix it other than rejoining the server.
Then probably the most annoying bug, I introduce you the flag capture bug. This bug prevents CP from switching to its captureres even though their flag clearly shows his hoisted up completely. During this time, enemies still can spawn and clear out the flag captureres making this bug very fustrating to the victims.
If I remember correctly, this bug started to appear in 1.00 and has so far not been fixed.
Next is my favorite: A bug that makes your aircraft mark empty vehicles as a hostile live vehicle. It's somewhat complex, but in a nutshell: There are times when your aircraft in bomb mode marks a vehicle indicating its a foe. However, the vehicle is actually empty. Like the other 1.00 bugs, this hasn't been fixed yet and I don't think it will ever be since only a few have expressed this bug.
Read on here for more info with screenshots:
http://boards.gamefaqs.com/gfaqs/gen...topic=23925310
Finally, the last subtle yet annoying bug: The Basic/Veteran badge bug. This bug sometimes happens when the player recieves two badges of the same family at the same time. In rare or uncommon cases, BFHQ will only recognize the superior badge (veteran) and ignore the other badge (basic).
Before BF2 1.03, this bug would be quickly brushed off since it didn't show in BFHQ and back then, no one could've thought of being a 1st sergeant. Well after 1.03, people have been ranting that they have met or exceeded the requirements of 1st sergeant / sergeant major but did not get promoted to that rank.
The fact that these bugs weren't fixed make the patch already make me disappointed about it already. These bugs are common, has been brought up several times, and are annoying. Yet DICE/EA seems to have absolutely no clue about it since they never mentioned those bugs above. Hopefully those official threads about the negatives of 1.03 and asking issues and problems from players will bring light to these bugs.
WOW! the video director is awwwwweesoom!
Added new soldier artwork in BFHQ: Anyone had a problem with the old ones?
Added name of video director to credits: ...
Fixed an issue where parachuting soldiers could not be healed: ...
Set some wheels on jets and helpcopters to stronger armor to prevent them from being destroyed instantly by AT missiles: IF AN AT MISSLE HITS THE WHEELS OF AIRCRAFTS OR HELICOPTERS, IT DESERVES TO BE DESTROYED.
Adding the welcome screen: Quite useless, I believe in order to read the update/news, your game will minimize and then will open a website to it.
Mini-map able to zoom in and out without player's consent: somewhat annoying, I now have to readjust the zoom because I pressed certain keys that have absolutely nothing do with the mini-map.
I can tell you that NO ONE has asked for these fixes and changes. In fact, some of them made BF2 worse such as that pop up welcome screen and the dynamic mini-map. Instead of being fully under our control, certain actions will trigger the map to zoom in and out at times where the player doesn't want it to happen. Being in or changing seat in vehicles, pressing the TAB key, and using radio commands will reset the level of zoom in the mini-map. No one suggested this, and it ruined one of the features that actually worked. If DICE just had to fix something about the mini-map, it must be the flag icon placements. Sometimes these mini-maps are very inaccurate at pointing out where the flag is. You might actually be under the flag icon but the flag is actually 20-40 meters away from you. This affects most to people who usually play one size map (16, 32, and 64) then decide to try out the other flavors.
Congratulations Mrs. BF2 and Mr. 1.03, it's a bug!
Prefix bug: Ah! what's so special about this bug is that if any of you use prefixes, it's the first bug to ever come up when starting up BF2. I cannot imagine how testers could not have detected or noticed this bug, IT'S SHOWING RIGHT IN FRONT OF THEIR EYES AT THE START OF THE GAME. It only took one day, one day after the patch for people to find this bug, and these people never were payed or bothered to find bugs. What does that show about DICE's testers?
The Promotion meter: Another bug that should've been quickly noticed. People who have instantly promoted from the revised rank system will experience this. Basically the bar will not work until you get promoted again. For me, this bar will never work until 6 months later once I hit 50,000 GP...assuming if I'll ever play BF2 then.
I have not confirmed this one but multiple users are experiencing it. Apparently the skins of some parts of the mountain ranges behind the PLA airbase in Dalian Plant is now gone. This would sometimes cause aircrafts to hit a solid invisible object without knowing it. Going to try that out tomorrow.
New bugs that are hard to see, detect, and notice, I would understand and be more tolerant of them. However, when the bug can be actually be seen by users and players, it makes you wonder wheter the testers are blind or too shy/lazy to report it.
Sales clerk: Oh? computer ver. 1.03, monitor, and mouse doesn't work? instead of a refund, repair & maintnence, or apology, how about we offer you a digital processing and storage device powered by comp.., i mean core processing unit version 1.10 for all your internet, school, and business needs complete with input and output pheripheral hardwares?
Server browser: You would think after making 5 games that is nearly played the same, they would finally make a server browser that's actually fast and optimized? This has been a problem from the start since the demo. DICE claimed they have fixed and improved it, but I don't see any improvements from the previous version. Anyone else?
Looking at the official Battlefield 2 forums for UK, it seems that only six selected filters work. So if you mark/enable 7 filters, one of them won't work which can explain why the server browser is showing servers that are full.
Improved the behavior of AA missiles when locked on an enemy: I have been in the recieving end of missles more than I have been firing them and from experience, I have to say that they are still performing the same. These missles still don't like the taste or odor of jet fumes spilling out of the aircraft's engines and they really love to do some neat tricks by going straight at the target but then abrubtly doing a corkscrew and diving down to the ocean.
Point: They are unreliable still. If they actually improved it, it seems helicopters are getting the most of the punishment out of this than aircrafts.
Because DICE claims to have addressed these problems, they can justify the outcry from players still complaining about these issues by stating: Patch 1.03/1.10 (Yes, they're the same, now can you comprehend the joke?) has already addressed this issue. Hopefully they won't pull that crap on us. Again, I believe the fault lies on the testers, how the hell could they not see that there is absolutely no difference with the changes?!
Do their stinger actually hit aircrafts and helicopters most of the time? Is thier server browsers silky smooth that none of them need to move to All Seeying Eye?
You wake up, and look out the window, and witness the horror of seeing thousands asteroids rain down on your beloved world. Your own kinds are screaming for mercy that even the devil will deny, pleading for help that'll never come, and praying to a superior being of hopes of salvation. You feel confused, dazed, and try to hide from all this, but it's futile, self-denial is no use, you still picture the horrifying deaths, destruction, and chaos that's just beyond this wall that consists merely of brick and mortar.
But don't worry, there's hope, because you just saved $43 a month from Geico yesterday. So if you manage to survive this ordeal, you'll have $516 more in your pocket each year. Kudos for you young man!
But don't worry, there's hope, because you just saved $43 a month from Geico yesterday. So if you manage to survive this ordeal, you'll have $516 more in your pocket each year. Kudos for you young man!
Restricting/Discouraging the use of UH-60: As all of you regular players know, the blackhawk wasn't a transport: it was a flying demon from hell spitting millions of deadly rounds from its ears. Well the demon is longer no more since now, it's difficult to cap flags because the flag will only take one person into account of the vehicle. This exposes the UH-60 from constant ground fire and drastically reduces the rate of points the UH-60 crew gets.
Restricting/discouraging the exploit of stat padding: When people first read the news that in order to stop stat padding, it would limit the amount of teamwork points the player would recieve if he keeps reammoing, reviving, or healing the same player, many took it as a bad solution toward the end of stat padding. So far, I have not read or faced any complaints about this restriction, and so far, I have not seen any stat padders so I believe this restriction is working, an extraordinary feat when compared to other fixes and tweaks in this patch.
Severely reducing the damage of ramming when at certain speeds: Well, people kept whining about how easy it was to TK their teammates simply because their vehicle was moving at a snail speed. I for one has teamkilled more people than ramming my enemies with the previous ramming physics in vehicles. Therefore I find this to be a welcome change at the cost of not being to ram foes very well. I believe this is one of the few things BF2 players much accept: either not easily TKing people with their vehicle and having difficulties of achieving road kills or being able to road kill enemies easily and easily and commonly TKing their own teammates.
With all the ranting, complaints, and pointing out flaws of 1.03/1.10, it's a nice change to bring light and attention of the good things that the patch has brought out. These 3 changes has changed the gameplay drastically to a better level. No longer can USMC capture six flags under a minute by using the blackhawk in Mashtuur and Shongua, no longer can incapable players stat pad to be on par with average players, and no more are the fustrations players get simply because someone jumped right in front of their vehicle or roadkilling them that was beyond their control.
Baby bird: When will mommy come back with the food? it's been 4 years since she flew away
Mommy bird: I'm back! I brought back something that came to being 4 years ago, let me regurgitate it and feed it into to you like it was new
Mommy bird: I'm back! I brought back something that came to being 4 years ago, let me regurgitate it and feed it into to you like it was new
The 1.03 patch released the remake of this renouned map hoping that BF2 players will have the same enjoyment to that of the players in BF1942 experienced.
Well, I want to ask this question to those that played BF1942: Is this map as much fun as it was in BF1942?
Now I want to ask every BF2 players: Is this map balanced or does one side seem to have an advantage?
For me, it seems the the experience, gameplay, and fun factor for this map is similar as those of other BF2 maps. I notice that vehicles and aircrafts play a larger role in this map than those in BF1942. It's no surprise if what I said is correct, after all, jets and armors here are a lot faster and more powerful than their counterparts in BF1942. I am also aware that you can't enter most of the buildings as you could in BF1942 which brings me to the question: Why? Isn't BF2's engine a lot better than BF1942's engine? Shouldn't it be able to handle all buildings being accessible? Or were DICE mappers and modelers too damn lazy to make them?
Furthermore, the heavy role and utilization of vehicles imply that DICE testers have not extensively tested this map and that DICE has failed to take notice that the role and power of BF2 vehicles are way different from their counterparts. If they do realize that BF2 vehicles are a lot faster and stronger, it seems then DICE was too lazy to balance the map and instead, placed the vehicles that corresponds to the vehicles that were available in BF1942.
To me, this map feels very much ported with no optimizations and no tweaking to fit the standard of BF2. Regurgitation is a better description.
And now, our featured conclusion... What am I suppose to do? OH FFS!... Fine... *walks to the right*
*sings* "Let's all go to the Lobby, Let's all go to the Lobby, Let's all go to the Lobby..."
*sings* "Let's all go to the Lobby, Let's all go to the Lobby, Let's all go to the Lobby..."
Nevertheless DICE has showed some lack of testing and poor feedback, assuming they even had testers judging and observing the patch. As of right now, my confidence in DICE's support and testing team has shattered, I had high hopes for this patch of eliminating the old bugs and optimizing/tweaking certain aspects of the game such as the game browser. The latter alone would've immideately make me favorable of this patch, but unfortantely it has not.
I hope you enjoyed reading this review and I hope some of my short dry humor broke your boredom time to time.
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