TERA Stealth Updates...Not Just Cutting Back on Nipples!! (1 Viewer)

[infinity496]

Recently I decided to do a check on what files had changed from the North American Open Beta of TERA to the recent patch that just went out. As I stated earlier in this post, some of the NPCs were also having their nipples removed (in addition to the PC armor sets). But what I recently learned really surprised me...

Not only have the textures been altered, but many of them have been downsized!! All the changes were to the normal and/or specular maps. Textures were reduced to either 1/4th or (in some cases) 1/16th of their original size!

---

Just take a look at what happened to Lodon...
Warning: I saved these as PNGs so as not to loose any quality on the original textures. These images are big!
Note: The resolution is boxed in green.

Normal Map


Specular Map


End result



Some other examples:


In the last example, there is not even any nipple involvement.

---

ALL NPC Changes from NA Open Beta to May 30th, 2012[SUP]1[/SUP]

To download the originals where the quality was compromised, use the GPK filename link,
or download all of them (does not include Q_Hasmina_F).
To download the originals where only nipples were removed, use the GPK filename link,
or download all of them (does not include Popori_F_Sewer).​

GPK Filename	Nipples Removed	Qualiy Loss
Beliq_Q	X	X
Castanic_F_Common_Cold	X
Castanic_F_Cook	X
Castanic_F_Extractor	X
Castanic_F_Lsmith	X
Castanic_F_Poor_Temp	X
Castanic_F_Rich_Death	X
Castanic_F_Rich_Trop	X
HighElf_F_Magicsmith	X	X
Human_F_Corpse	X	X
Human_F_Poor_Temp	X
Human_F_Survivor	X
Human_F_Tube	X
Popori_F_Sewer	X
Q_Belic	X	X
Q_Hasmina_F[SUP]2[/SUP]	X	X
Q_Human_F_Common_Temp	X
Q_Human_F_NA11	X
Q_Janovia	X	X

[SUP]1[/SUP] All NPCs were modified since the NA Open Beta. In determining what had happened to the file, I used files from the KR Open Beta client. Special thanks go to Wiesiek for supplying earlier versions for a couple files I didn't have a backup for.
[SUP]2[/SUP] I'm pretty sure this one doesn't even appear in-game. It was used for a promotional video.




Notice that all the changes so far are to female NPCs. I'd expect more stealth updates to occur until they remove nipples from every texture for a female NPC in the game.

Why must the texture resolution be sacrificed as the crusade to eliminate all female nipples in TERA wages on?

 

[Falcy]

That's... pretty bad.
Sooooooo who wants to have the largest mod ever for Tera in the future to have nothing changed? :D

 

[ibonihskrad]

Nothing changed? Are you kidding? I don't even have my glasses on and I can see the quality difference in those pictures, it's insane.

 

[NotMe]

Why must the texture resolution be sacrificed as the crusade to eliminate all nipples in TERA wages on?

I never played Tera but considering that it's in beta, does it have full working graphical options?
If not, they may just be testing the low quality textures with this patch.

A possible explanation for removing nipples and blood is that they're testing a sort of "parental control" feature to be added in the future. I'm just speculating though.

Nothing changed? Are you kidding? I don't even have my glasses on and I can see the quality difference in those pictures, it's insane.

I think that he's talking about making a mod to revert this changes back to their initial state (full res and with nipples included)

 

[Dan]

Oh wait, so Tera used to have vanilla nipple textures but then they removed them due to the modders making them visible? C'mon, pervy developers, they wanted to keep the nipples for themselves...

 

[Haterade]

I never played Tera but considering that it's in beta, does it have full working graphical options?
If not, they may just be testing the low quality textures with this patch.

TERA has been live in the US for a month now.

 

[infinity496]

From my experience all the files that existed from KR Open Beta can still be swapped without issue for the current ones from the NA updates. I think I may actually upload the ones being hit with lower texture sizes.

 

[Haterade]

From my experience all the files that existed from KR Open Beta can still be swapped without issue for the current ones from the NA updates. I think I may actually upload the ones being hit with lower texture sizes.

That would be cool.

Have the files changed in K-TERA live or do you only have the K-TERA beta files to compare with?

 

[infinity496]

I haven't bothered much with trying to update the files from the kTERA beta (which I downloaded via torrent). If (as I've heard) the changes made to the NA client are now present in kTERA live, there may be no point to it as well.

 

[infinity496]

Since I hadn't actually tested this stuff out in-game, I thought I'd give it a try just to be thorough. Sure enough, the lack of detail in the textures lead to a lack of detail in the game. Shocking, right?

Official fully-updated NA client (no mods)


Swapped for Original kTERA OB GPK


Update: Added links. See first post.

 

[Y2Ryoko]

When I installed Tera two weeks ago, the first thing I did was backup all of the art assets. If I just restore those now, will I essentially circumvent all of this?

 

[infinity496]

Perhaps. Of course, you'll want to back up the official current release stuff too as you'll need them if they ever update the same file again (and they have). Honestly, I didn't back up everything, so what I have to compare is the current NA and KR Open Beta for the most part. I don't know what may have changed between KR Open Beta and NA Open Beta, but most of the stuff is identical, or was until recently.

P.S. Did you get a retail box version? I'd really appreciate it if you (or anyone with the original NA Open Beta files, dated before April 22nd) could upload the GPK files with "??" on them.

Edit: I received the missing files. Thanks, Wiesiek!

 

[Naduron]

P.S. Did you get a retail box version? I'd really appreciate it if you (or anyone with the original NA Open Beta files, dated before April 22nd) could upload the GPK files with "??" on them.

I have only from EU

 

[Tracido]

Perhaps. Of course, you'll want to back up the official current release stuff too as you'll need them if they ever update the same file again (and they have). Honestly, I didn't back up everything, so what I have to compare is the current NA and KR Open Beta for the most part. I don't know what may have changed between KR Open Beta and NA Open Beta, but most of the stuff is identical, or was until recently. P.S. Did you get a retail box version? I'd really appreciate it if you (or anyone with the original NA Open Beta files, dated before April 22nd) could upload the GPK files with "??" on them.

I backed up all the .gpk's that were female NPC's for the most part (knowing they were all they hadn't had time left to butcher), I didn't think to back up much else, but I saw the writing on the wall with the insane censorship being forced upon Tera to begin with so yeah, all are before open beta ended and yeah I have a physical copy but open beta's files were clearly going to get fucked with so I backed up as much as I could.

Honestly though, the game has really turned me off because of all this censorshit madness overall, the people hired for the publishing company here & in Europe have only my hate, not my support, period. Also, if it weren't for modders restoring the game's original direction (truly 18+) I'd have never touched it to begin with.

Well I zipped them and broke them apart several times all for nothing but 'this file is too large' even at 30mb chunks, pretty lame for a modding site these days and all this trouble for 177MB is not worth my time, if you want them, just send me your skype.

 

[NotMe]

TERA has been live in the US for a month now.

Ah, my bad then :P

 

[Wiesiek]

P.S. Did you get a retail box version? I'd really appreciate it if you (or anyone with the original NA Open Beta files, dated before April 22nd) could upload the GPK files with "??" on them.

I have clients from NA OBT and KR from ~2011-12-22
If you are want specific files I can upload it - just say which ones. If you want all... PC+NPC folders are ~6 GB - have you idea where to upload it without issues?

 

[lapdragon]

I have clients from NA OBT and KR from ~2011-12-22
If you are want specific files I can upload it - just say which ones. If you want all... PC+NPC folders are ~6 GB - have you idea where to upload it without issues?

I'd rar it into 500mb chunks and upload it to mediafire.

 

[killzone12]

why do they want to get rid of nipples and hires models and what not??

 

[infinity496]

I have clients from NA OBT and KR from ~2011-12-22
If you are want specific files I can upload it - just say which ones. If you want all... PC+NPC folders are ~6 GB - have you idea where to upload it without issues?

Specifically, Castanic_F_Rich_Death and Q_Hasmina_F from the NPC folder. I have originals of the rest either from KR OBT or NA OBT. And yeah, mediafire is pretty easy for uploading.

why do they want to get rid of nipples and hires models and what not??

As for the nipples, I'm sure it's to try and prevent some parental backlash or something before the public in general knows about them. They're liking trying to hide the fact that the nipples were there by silently removing them. Many people honestly believe there never were any nipples in place now...that it was simply a "mod" from the Internet.

As for lowering the resolution of the other textures... I have no clue. I hope it's incompetence, and that they'll realize their mistake and fix it later, rather than dumb down the graphics further and state that they've "enhanced framerates" with some future patch.

 

[Falcy]

I honestly thought there weren't nipples in place either cause En Masse was denying it so heavily in their tickets I was sending them asking what was censored between Korea and NA's releases.

But after seeing this, I'm ashamed of being in NA now :(

Infinity. You are my only hope for Tera now xD And Naduron