Big Changes to Avatars and Avatar Downloader
Howdy folks, we're back with another important update!
Quick Summary
Starting December 15th, most free users will only be able to access a smaller compressed and cropped version of their tupper avatar images through Tupperbox, but not the full size.
To save your avatars in their original, uncropped form, visit this page and click 'Download All Tupper Avatars' now.
Discord Avatar Problem
As we explained in our last blog post, Discord is introducing a change that locks down all attachments uploaded through Discord so that they can only be accessed through Discord.
We ran the numbers and found that about 95% of tuppers use Discord attachments as avatars. This was bad news - if we didn't do anything, all of those tuppers would end up with broken avatars after December 15th! The good news is that we were able to develop a solution that will allow us to keep everything running smoothly, and even more reliably than before.
Our Solution
In order to prevent Discord's changes from causing any issues for Tupperbox users, we have downloaded and made copies of all 77 million tupper avatar images, and are now hosting them on our own servers at our expense. Because this is a costly operation, we've had to downscale, compress, and crop any large images. We chose a maximum of 512x512 for these images, which should still be perfect for Discord.
Previously, we provided avatar hosting only to Tupperbox Premium users, but we're now making it available to all Tupperbox users. Premium users, however, will not have their avatars downscaled, compressed, or cropped - the original image gets preserved in its entirety.
It's important to note that our solution only affects images served through Tupperbox, for example on the Dashboard or bot commands like tul!list.
You may still see links like the one shown below through the bot, but they won't work after December 15th, and unfortunately there's nothing we can really do about that.
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/824704924838395965/1175659580349501452/20231114_203152.jpg
What Does This Mean for Me?
With our solution, all users should see all Tupperbox features continue working as expected. Tuppers will continue working on Discord and on the website better than ever before, since we no longer depend on Discord or any other image host for our avatars. As long as a Tupper remains registered, its avatar should always work from here on out, with the exception of outages on Discord's end.
Free users are unlikely to notice any change in quality when using tuppers because our cropping method matches Discord's cropping method for proxies, but if you try to
view the full-size image using tul!list or tul!avatar, you may find the image cropped and compressed after December 15th.
The original uncropped and full resolution images may be inaccessible after this date due to Discord's changes!
For those that want to preserve all of these full size and uncropped avatar images before the deadline, we have very rapidly developed a new tool to help!
Introducing the Avatar Downloader
The Avatar Downloader is a new tool on our utilities page that has replaced the old Migration tool. It is available to both Free and Premium users alike, and automatically zips all of your tuppers' avatars into a single zip file and delivers it straight to your device! It's sort of like an export tool that just gives you all the images.
We put this together because we know a lot of you like to use Tupperbox as a way to organize and store info and images of your characters and members, and we knew many of you would be bummed out to find that your full size image links had just stopped working after December 15th.
The images themselves should still be accessible through Discord, but you'll need to scroll or search until you find the post in which you originally uploaded it, which can be a huge pain, especially for up to 500 tuppers.
If you want to keep all your original uploads, you'll want to visit the Downloader before December 15th and click the button. The tool should continue to work after the 15th as well but will only be able to download the 512x512 version.
Goodbye, Migration Tool
Because of this fundamental change to our system, and to Discord's attachments, we've phased out the old Migration tool for Premium users. The main use of the Migration tool was to move all of a Premium user's avatars from Discord attachments or Imgur links to Tupperbox, but this change by Discord will make those attachments inaccessible, making the migration process effectively useless.
Thank You to our Premium Members
The only reason we can afford to do something as massive as download and re-host 77 million images at our own expense is because of our Premium users, to whom we are extremely grateful. Without you, we couldn't afford to react to changes like this. This took a huge amount of development effort, but everything should continue to work as normal going forward.
If you would like to support Tupperbox, consider becoming a Premium member! We'll be sure to back up all of your full size images before the December 15th deadline, so you won't have to worry about any of this! We've also got some exciting Premium features planned in the near future, once all this has been handled smoothly. Probably after the holidays.
Thank you all for reading! As always, if you need help with anything or just want to give us feedback, hit us up at our support server!
~ Gasparr, Tupperbox Director of Amphibious Operations