Shaping perceptions
First, read this.
Short form is what we already knew:
- People defer to tall people.
- People like attractive people.
- People like those who look like them.
- People like those who act like them.
Then, ask yourself the following questions:
Why do we offer short player races/species in these games?
What does it mean that someone chooses a race/species that is guaranteed to be discriminated against?
Why do we offer ugly races/species in these games? (FWIW, the data shows that ugly species/races get chosen far less than races and species that resemble humans.)
Why do people choose those if it means they get discriminated against?
Are the various RvR schemes tapping into this by having all of one race/species on one side?
Could we make our NPCs more interesting by just having them mirror what the player does? (We’d probably have to increase what the player does to have any effect, I guess…!)
What would happen if we made a world where achievement was negatively correlated to beauty or height?
Or a world where there was no beauty or height differences?
Or a world where we just assigned occasional things like freckles, zits, birthmarks, heights, and so on?
Given the power of games to retrain perceptions, could we train people to not only look skin-and-height-deep even in the real world?
By the way, for those interested in the psychological effects that make people like someone or defer to them, I strongly urge you to check out the fascinating (and depressing!) book Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion.
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[IMG Crowd]Raph poses some questions on the back of some Nick Yee data. Short form is what we already knew: People defer to tall people. People like attractive people. People like those who look like them. People like those who act like them.
To be unique. In games like WoW and Everquest, you know there’s going to be a huge number of players who take the elven races. They all end up looking alike, blending into a generic ‘elf’ image. Those who wish to stand out will usually take one of the troll/dwarf/undead races.
In a sea of dark elves named ‘drizzzzzt’, ‘drizzledizt’ and ‘do’urrdeyn’, it’s easy to notice the half-jawed, undead named ‘bob’.
This seems to assume that people only look skin-and-height deep in the real world, which they don’t. All things being equal, attractive taller people do have an advantage. All things generally aren’t equal though. For instance, if the same studies were done with the attractive people having an angry expression on their face, and the unattractive people genuinely smiling, I am quite certain the unattractive people would wipe the floor with the attractive ones. Ultimately, we like and want to get close to people that make us feel good. Appearances are just a small factor in this. I think the other persons behavior is a much bigger factor. Warm outgoing people are well-liked regardless of attractiveness. Although I think it’s possible to train people to look beyond appearances, I think in the context of games, it would be easier to retrain behaviors. Why not allow for more meaningful social interaction than combat and trading?
Some people have bad taste ;o. Others choose the other races because they think they are cute in some way to them. Like thinking a snake is cute. Others choose them to look evil or powerful in nature. Some people just pick them to stand out as well regardless of all other things while others are somewhat fixed into what they must be. Such as being in a guild in DAoC and ending up on a faction where all the races look bad.
The last one is a obvious one. Because some races are just better at doing something then other races. “Racial Abilities / Stats”. Same as you can only be this class if your this race type of thing.
@ Brian – If appearance is so secondary, why would anybody care if a good teacher had a sex change? http://www.buzzle.com/editorials/2-28-2006-90024.asp
I actually played an incredibly short, green-haired human/leprechaun in SWG (I’m not a big fan of the SW mythos so I rolled my own). If the models are done well, I usually prefer to play gnomes or dwarves. An odd choice given that I’m almost 2 meters tall in real life but I like playing the shorties.
Basically there’s a difference from a “tendency” towards something and a reality. Sure, someone might have a slight tendency to treat my short avatar one way or another but by and large it didn’t really matter. The shortness was devoid of most of the associated physical cues (as I was in 3rd person view I never had to “look up” to people) and I think that persona is perceived through very different mechanisms in an online world anyway. Chatting “tone” seems FAR more important than how your avatar looks. I’d say I was still one of the dominant personalities on my server. There’s a “tendency” to think of a female avatar as a woman but “tone” is a far better indicator in practice and I think players gradually adjust to that way of looking at things.
Given the power of games to retrain perceptions, could we train people to not only look skin-and-height-deep even in the real world?
I think context is too important. Just as it is often argued that cartoon blood or violence in video games doesn’t equate to a person’s perception of real blood or violence that their perception of physical aesthetics in real life don’t necessarily correlate to their perceptions of game avatars. I think that physical cues are very important for setting the context wherein people tend to defer to certain physical presences, for example. I mentioned looking up at someone, for example. When I was AI’ing in University I knew of a short teacher who had problems disciplining taller students. She learned to have them sit down while she disciplined them. For her it seemed that wasn’t the height that mattered so much as it was her chance to look down at them and have them look up at her.
I suppose a game could try to recreate physical cues, etc., but I still think it would be a different sort of experience and you would be training new muscles instead of the old ones.
I didn’t mean to give the impression that appearance isn’t important, it is. It just isn’t the ONLY thing that determines how much we like people. Male rockstars have no problem finding friends, and most are butt-ugly(with exceptions here and there). You think Gene Simmons, Ringo Starr, Iggy Pop, Notorious B.I.G, Mick Jagger, …[insert name here] are judged primarily by their looks?
As far as the teacher, getting a sex change is a huge social taboo, which is why people care. Nobody is complaining that the guy is going to make an ugly woman.
Few games over enough initial customization for everyone to be immediately recognizable as truly different. And then later, through content funneling, invariably characters gain visual similarities due to folks seeking from a limited set of “best” gear. Combined, there’s a sense of sameness some people feel in these titles, so they look for uniqueness wherever they can find it.
But as you say, the result is choice discrimination. The most recent examples for me would be the much-discussed faction imbalance between Horde and Alliance in WoW, and these census results. I imagine the list goes on. At rough guess, I’d say the Lugians were the least played of the three AC2 races. For SWG I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s the Ithorians or Rodians that are least played, which is a shame for a lore that is all about the breadth of races in a society. EQ1 I’d guess Ogres. And so on.
In a way, I think this corrolates with game worlds too. People want to be in environments they like more than in environments they don’t. For example, as much as I thought MxO had some great concepts, it was just not a happy place to spend four hours a day 🙂
But having said that all…
I truly hope not. While there’s definitely an a bias towards pretty, tall, and humanistic overtones, it’s the very diversity of a space that makes these more attractive for folks seeking to find their comfort zones and those who are seeking uniqueness. We’re a diverse species. I think it’s good that games highlight this. Sanitizing a game too much can alienate those who feel they’re not part of what is defined as “normal” in it.
At the same time, I think there’s ways to achieve vast differences without having to spend a lot of resources on unique races and lore. Here I’d hold up CoH as a good example. It would stretch the laws of probability pretty far to try and predict the chance of two characters ever looking the same. And that’s in a game that for a long time only had both genders of humans, and a sub-category of male in “Huge”.
I bet there are very similar scientifically based principles that would make worlds more or less appealing, for sure. For example, I recently read about research showing that landscapes that had a few characteristics were reported as “prettier” by test groups: a place to shelter from weather; mostly natural landscape; a touch of human artifact creation (such as a bridge over a river); an uncluttered or “not noisy” environment that can be parsed.
Similarly, there’s a lot in architecture, visual arts, and so on, that suggests that we could be engaging in much better conscious control of game players.
Short races – But most MMORPG players used a 3rd person POV most of the time, so short characters (from the air) are more “small” than “short”. Small implies not dangerous, which in balanced MMORPG-race terms implies not “physcially” dangerous, but magically dangerous.
Freckles, zits, birthmarks,etc – They’re already programmed into my world, including occasional missing teeth. (http://www.mxac.com.au/mif/ScreenRandomFaces.jpg) I’m not sure how players will respond. A 3d-accelerated MMORPG can’t do this because the polygon-count and texture-map-size would be too high. Besides, with 3rd person views in most MMORPGs, faces are only ever 10 pixels high so detail doesn’t matter.
By the way, “ugly” (aka: not-perfect looking) NPCs look more interesting. The NPCs gain “character” from some ugliness, and look like they’ve done a lot. One problem with EQII is that every NPC looks like a professional model aged 25; They’d look better if some were obese, had a weathered face like McJagger or Einstein, had scars, had worn clothes, etc.
Pretty landscapes – Fable does a pretty good job of pretty landscapes, which look very park-like.
Random comment about races – The important thing about races is that they allow the player to say something about themselves. A person that chooses to be a troll is saying something about themselves (or min-maxing their hit points, which is unintentionally saying something about the player). Most MMORPGs have races that are humans with or without pointy ears, tall or short, with dark or blond hair. More races like trolls, undead, warforged, EQ’s frog creatures, cat-people, dragons, centaurs, etc. allow for more personal statements.
I recall startling Steve Jackson at a GDC years and years ago with my pontification, “Character classes and races are just modes of expression.” I must have sounded like such a wet-behind-the-ears arrogant twit. 🙂 Sorry, Steve!
Not to sound like like too much of a wet-behind-the-ears arrogant twit: Races in contemporary MMORPGs are about 50% for looks/expression, and 50% for gameplay special abilities. Morrowind actually has race affect gameplay in more subtle ways (NPC reactions), something that MMORPGs could introduce to make race more meaningful.
I see class as much more gameplay-involved than expression, although choosing to be a healer vs. rogue/thief vs. tank does say something about the player.
Pick a sexy female character and see how easier it is to play the game! People are nicer to you event hough you tell them your a guy and get into guilds/groups easier!
Raplh when will SOE let you produce your own mmorpg? Not including SWG.
Just passing through quickly, and I hope to discuss some other points here, but for now this’ll have to do: I disagree with the assumption that people defer to tall people.
Short example: Napoleon.
Better example: Research conducted upon height and social popularity as a result of it. Result? No correlation.
Abstract.
That you considered your comment that of a wet-behind… suggests you believe character classes and races are not this? Can you elaborate? Or do you just mean that it is this, but just entirely obvious.
Ok, to follow on from earlier;
So the question is why do we offer races or physical attributes to players that are defined as unattractive?
Simply put, because the players will choose them. When offered a range of looks (something that players constantly clamor for when following a game in production), players will take full advantage of them.
SOE and Cryptic Studios know this. Hence their extensive character creation tools used in EQII, SWG and CoH.
Sigil also knows this. Hence their bazillion race choices (half of them furry-orientated) planned for Vanguard.
Yes, physical attraction and “sameness” have an effect upon popularity and additionally influence our experiences with players, whether on or offline. Yet uniqueness is also a deciding factor in the formation of one’s identity, as outlined in Snyder and Fromkin’s much cited and much applauded 1977 study. In it, the Need for Uniqueness is defined as a positive striving for differentness relative to other people, and discriminated from abnormality and deviance on its positive connotations.
In short, being unique makes you stand out. Standing out in the right way will make you popular. Popular = teh own.
When it comes to MMOs, most of the methods people normally go about conveying their uniqueness – such as speech and body language – either cannot be utilized or they become so watered down in the translation (typing and emotes vastly pale in comparison to the real thing) that there are only a scarce few ways left. Thankfully, the most successful uniqueness affirmation approach remains largely valid in MMOs – Appearance.
So, when faced with the cold hard blank canvas of a character creator and finding that most of the typical ingredients – clothes and accessories – are not manageable, players seeking to be unique will instead fall back to the most effective way to distinguish themselves from someone else; making an unattractive avatar.
It is for these players that being unique, even at the price of a gnome with a butt for a head, outweighs the benefit of looking like everybody else when they find themselves competing against 64 other Mages vying for the last spot in a raid group.
– Cosmik, no stranger to making Ogres with the slider set to Maximum Ugliness in order to be recognized and accepted.
What a cool subject! Personally, I’ve created a toon in WoW for each of the races except Orcs, Gnomes and Humans. I plan to get to them as well. Why? Because I enjoy the slight skew of looking at the WoW world from the different racial perspectives. I like starting out in different zones, talking to different NPCs, learning firsthand what is cool about the race I’m in at the moment.
Is there discrimination based on appearance? You betcha! Not rampant, but it’s there. My female dwarf character recently got challenged to a duel by an Undead who was thirty levels higher than she was. I thought — I’m just standing here, might as well, and accepted the duel.
The moment was humorous, as my Paladin dwarf didn’t have a lot of strength and I basically ran in circles pounding him with a mace while he stood there, arms folded. I laughed, knowing he would end it when he wanted to.
But his druid friend showed up and the two of them started making nasty comments about the “fat, ugly dwarf whore.” I figured, “ah, 13-yr-olds” and told them to show me respect. Which they didn’t. My dueling partner put me out of my misery and challenged a nearby level 60 Paladin who had been watching.
The Paladin squashed him and sent me a message that he had avenged my honor. The whole incident still makes me laugh! But I doubt the original comments would have occurred had I played a night elf or human female.
J and I also had an interesting interaction where a male toon assumed J and I were both females because we were playing female undead toons. As a result, whenever anything dangerous happened, he would tell us to “stay back” and “wait for him to give the all clear.” He was doing all the damage and we were supposed to WATCH! J was completely mystified until the guy did something that clued us both in — he thought J was *really* a girl!
I took the opportunity to point out to J how quickly males assume that because someone is female they’re missing 50 or more IQ points. J pointed out to me how easily women had it — they could stand by and let the men do all the work! Interesting reflection of gender bias all in all. I had to concede the point. It is awfully tempting to stand around and look dumb when a guy is willing to do all the work and give you the loot. But eventually it gets boring and irritating. 🙂
Another thing about appearance in games — I think it is often common for people to pick the opposite of what they are IRL: men play women, women play men. Shorts play talls, talls play shorts. How awesome that people can see perceptions projected on their toons that they would never experience in real life! All by stepping into a different skin.
***end transmission***
My post seems to be waiting moderation. Is the blog viewing me as ugly and not liking me?
It’s because you used multiple links. That’s one of the commonest indicators of spam. We also moderate automatically based on a bunch of keywords — the word “blog” is even one of them, so Tess always seems to get caught.
But we go through posts for moderation several times a day, so the delay is never very long.
Actually, I pulled the “blog” one a bit ago… so we aren’t picking on Tess or the others who use blogspot or mydomain.com/blog for their urls. Just means a few more “I really like your blog so I’m going to leave some spam on your comments” ones get through, but we try to zap those as soon as we see ’em!
No, but I think that all of those examples save one were personalities who rose in the era before music videos and endless television celebrity. The canonical example of how much “video killed the radio star” is Christopher Cross, who was simply not sexy enough to make good music videos at the dawn of MTV, and whose career faded fast as a result, even though he was hugely popular. Heck, just this week, Simon Cowell commented on how the not-quite-dance moves of Taylor Hicks would horrify video makers.
And, of course, we hear of similar examples from the political world, and so on.
I think we’re discussing long-term versus instant snap decisions here, though. Becoming a dominant personality on a server takes a long time. Most of the effects of the stuff listed in the post are for very short term snap decisions. I am pretty sure, for example, that the research they did at Stanford didn’t make any long-term partisans of Bush or Kerry change their minds no matter how many faces they blended in.
I haven’t seen stats since the Ithorians went in, plus they have a massive disadvantage in terms of how long they’ve been in the game, but you’re correct on the Rodians. In fact, the most human-like of the species were notably more popular: Humans, Zabraks, Twi’leks. And female Twi’leks were the only species to outnumber males, again almost certainly because of image: the sexy female Twi’lek dancer girl is a powerful archetype for SW fans. Similarly, you’re correct on the ogres, in my recollection. And I believe that in EQ2 it’s the same, but I’d have to check.
I think you may prompt a post on the “impositional” game. 🙂
Cosmik wrote:
There is another reason… The uncanny valley.
To make a realisitc human look like it’s not a walking manequin requires technology beyond what we currently have. To make a humanoid frog look “realistic” is pretty easy because we don’t know what a humanoid frog looks/moves like, and real-life frogs don’t have many facial emotes (that I can perceive, at least).
Just look an CGI animated films: The characters all machines (Toy Story and Machines), animals (ice age, etc.), or cartoony (incredibles). The CGI movies that have tried to do humans (Final Fantasy and the christmas movie with Tom Hanks) have failed visually/emotionally, and at the box office.
Personally, I found all of the EQII races looked “good” except the humans/elves/hobbits, which disturbingly looked like they had plastic faces, and belonged to the X-files or a Doctor Who episode. Even the trolls looked “better” than the humans/elves/hobbits. Preview movies of Oblivion show the same problems.
Well that was kind of my point. You’re indicating tendencies that in generally I think are easily overcome by other concerns. Especially when I think these tendencies are already weakened by the differences between a virtual world (with such things as a 3rd person perspective) and real life.
I think it’s necessary to ask to what extent do the race choices in SWG hinge not on the perceptions of players but their experiences watching the Star Wars movies (where almost all of the heros are humans). Similarly for WoW, to what extent are we shaped to picked Alliance over Horde by media such as the Lord of the Rings. For a lot of people, real-life prejudices/perceptions may have little to do with their racial choices and it may have to do far more with their conceptions, from fiction, of how to portray a hero. It may not be prejudiced biology as much as it is simply unoriginality.
Although these tendencies are easily overcome in the real world, I don’t think we can be quite so quick to dismiss them. Consider this article on how unknown biases and possibly even genetics tie into preferences in politics. Or the ways in which suicide epidemics and the like get going. Or the countless techniques used by marketers, such as free gifts designed to condition us into a mindset of debt.
Just because it’s a fleeting effect doesn’t mean it can’t be very powerful…
I strongly suspect that if you made the short, ugly, race gain a meaningful game bonus, they would grossly outnumber everyone else in short order. Gamers do not care about being tall and beutiful — they care about being 133t, period.
Of course not. We should neither dismiss the concerns nor dismiss the conflicting variables. I’m really not a devil’s advocate, I swear, just someone who seeks balance in most discussions. Is it real-life prejudices given online form, or merely unoriginality, that causes certain choices? It is worth nothing, for example, that in SWG, Zabraks had the best racial ability at launch and humans had the best stats (with a bug that allowed them to push more points into mind than any other race). It’s also worth mentioning that there were a lot more rebels than imperials (suggesting again that it was mere unoriginality and not perception of physical form that guided character choices).
Without discussion of such conflicting variables how can we adequately discuss the topic at all and come up with any balanced conclusions? This strikes me as yet another case where real world meaning or real-world parsing of meaning is expected to exist in online worlds without any changes during translation. Personally I think it is not a huge issue, except for situations like balancing populations of horde versus alliance, because there are so many variables going into character selection. Attractiveness and height are just one concern for one subset of people and it’s fine to give this group options that match their biases. The rest of us can enjoy playing 4’6″ tall anomalies which also would not be possible without allowing extremes.
Well, the thread didn’t start with examples with all those variables, it started with abstract examples that left those other variables out.
Generally, I don’t think this is a huge issue either — it’s more ofan intellectual curiosity than anything else. But it does open up interesting thought-experiments.
What about the MMO where everyone is a clone — perfectly beautiful, identical stats, all human, and the same clothes. And the point of the game is to be an individual.
Then again, the way customization works in many games, we kinda have some of that now. 🙂
I have a justified reputation for playing shorties, uglies, and non-white characters in games. For me, it is a way to differentiate myself, and a way to make the game world more diverse for others. Though, there are lots of other factors, too.
In WoW, I just plain wanted to be a Gnome Rogue Engineer, and there was nothing in the world that was getting in my way. The only thing that would make it better is if she could build a flying machine and take up air piracy against the Goblin zeppelin lines. Now that’s entertainment!
But, there is, I admit, a certain satisfaction in ankle-biting in PvP. Nothing pisses off an eight-foot-tall behemoth in platemail like getting a cheap shot from a cute little green-haired Gnome, who squeaks like a chew toy when you hit her.
I would guess that the reason for most mmorpg’s to have the uglies and the shorties and that whole deal mostly is a standard of the genre. It has some merrit but the interesting part is how much of the development budget you spend on it. It is probably a worthy investment, altho in some cases it appears to be questionable.
I think there’s obviously alot of gamers who want to play beautiful, tall, strong, characters. When it comes to the uglies, when they also aren’t leet in some way, few players play them it’s true. But there’s a benefit to having them in the simple curiousity and color they add. The beautiful minded players need the difference to be there, to justify their characters, and roleplayers can appreciate a well played ugly little race. So, even if they are used sparingly, they add something to the game for everyone.
Hello.
First. This is my first post here, and I’m a big fan of your work Ralph (SWG Pre-anything). Looking forward to your next project.
On to the topic at hand.
I have noticed a trend in mmo’s. Most playable races are not really all that different. Most are stuck in that “Star-track” type differences, as in the only real difference is maybe the forehead and face, the rest, is human. There are some that some what break that mold (eq2 “froglocks” comes to mind), but not many.
I thank the bottom line is really:”People gravitate to what they can relate to.”… If things become to “inhuman” players can’t relate. It would be as if you were born with two arms, but suddenly now have 4, you brain would NOT know how to handle this (after a while maybe). I think this is also the case with wildly non-human races.
I also think that this topic does touch on the society as a whole. Mainly, the perception and want to be perfect. Our society constantly pours out media that “sets” the what is beautiful bar. The strive for the Hollywood, celebrity star of perfects.
Why would it be different in a game, where most play to escape reality, or, at least suspend it for a while?
Have you seen Dark and Light, Most of the races are very alien, including Fairies, Fairies that are TO SCALE, as in small. While some of the choices are still “Star-treck” variations, they are vastly different in most cases.
If you haven’t seen that game, you should. Seems about as sandbox as you can get.
In Second Life, people can make completely custom avatars. If it’s any indication, the Hollywood ideal is just a subset of what people strive for. If you wander around, you’ll find goths, angels, imps, gods, furries, fairies, punks, gimps, mermaids, and all manner of surrealism.
Avatars are a bit like ideal cars. Many people dream of having sexy sports cars, but there are other people who are passionate about Mini Coopers, trucks, Beetles, motorcycles, and what have you. I like hybrid-electric compacts, myself.
I am of the persuasion that people live in a world of their own creation, most of the time. People receive external input based on their environment, and use it to mold the way they view and interact with the world. Now, I am not a game designer myself (I would like to be though), and most of the views/discussions I read in the English medium are very “Western” flavored for the lack of a better world.
I play Final Fantasy Online, and TaruTarus (short, adorable and cute fellers) are very, very popular. Galkas (big, tall and stern gentle giants) are the least popular. None of the characters in FFXI really fall in the “ugly” category. From what I can gather from most of the Japanese players I know, they simply picked their avatar because they like how it looks, and not because it is how they want to present themselves to the other players.
Or, as an English poster in an online forum somewhere stated: “Picking a race is just a matter of whose rear end you can stand to stare at the longest.”
Good comment, Oogami.
FFXI, and in fact most of the Asian MMORPGS, are indeed an interesting comparison, because they often don’t include any ugly characters. Western MMOGs frequently do. In fact, it’s not unusual for the monsters in Asian MMOGs to be cute, whereas that’s unusual for the West.
Keep in mind, though, that “picking it because you like how it looks” doesn’t mean you aren’t making a choice how on to represent yourself to others. Often the choice may be subconscious — that’s what I have tended to see. When you get a reply of “I just like it better” is when you need to dig deeper and ask “why?”
The Prince character class in Lineage is another example of something that doesn’t cross the cultural gap well to the US; the idea of a predestined royal class is something that doesn’t fit well with the American narrative…
Yeah, it sounds like a way to foster instant resentment!
This is a bit off-topic to the thread, but since you brought this up, it reminded me of something else interesting. One thing I discovered in my MUSHing days is that US players absolutely cannot get their heads around the practice of feudalism, even if they understand it in an abstract sense. People constantly made dire political errors, because they simply couldn’t fathom that their lands and titles were at stake.
In the real world, I do have some racial preferences (for dating purposes) but in an online game world, a player can be the ugliest character ever invented, and I’ll still party with said player. No questions asked, as long as that player is not being a pain in the rear. If I am making a subconscious choice, am I really making a choice? (After all, it is out of my control). A psychologist might be equipped to explore this, but I am not up to it.
Here’s another interesting thing that I had observed from an online discussions. It does show that there are people out there who wants to be represented, as they are, in an online world. This western player asked: “Why is there no human model in this game that is black? (Or should I say African American?)”. I thought: “This issue would never have crossed my mind. It would be like thinking about why can’t I select an Asian version of Lara Croft.”
I may be going on a limb to say this but, could this be due to an Asian inclination to conform with the environment as opposed to a Western inclination to change the environment? Culture does play a big role and it is very evident in a game like FFXI where you have a significant number of people from both general cultures sharing the same online space. The Japanese did seem to have set the base culture though as they were in the game much much earlier.
It is not so say that all Japanese are saints. I had my share of discrimination when I lived there (I am not Japanese). Plus there are other conflicts in the game, but those do not relate to in-game race/avatar selection, so I shall not cover it.
[…] » Shaping perceptions from Raph’s Website First, read this. Short form is what we already knew: People defer to tall people. People like attractive people. People like those who look like them. People like those who act like them. Then, ask yourself the following questions: Why do … [Read More] […]