Weissvulf's post about how to buy SOM

#1
This is copied directly from the agetec boards, but I thought it might be good to post it here as well.

How to buy Sword of Moonlight and other KF memorabilia! ‎ 


If you're one of those people who have been looking for a copy of the original King's Field Japan, Shadow Tower Abyss or Sword of Moonlight: King's Field Making Tool for EVER without any luck, I may have found a way to buy memorabilia for our beloved KF from Japanese sellers and have it shipped to the US.

Yahoo Auction Japan is one of several Japanese sellers' forums similar to ebay. Infoseek is a Japanese to English automatic webpage translator. Celga is one of several online bidding services that will buy items for you from sites like Yahoo Auctions who won't ship internationally, for a fee (around $5- $10), and ship them to you .

Here's the walkthrough for those of us who think Japanese looks like chicken scratch:
Go to: https://auctions.yahoo.co.jp

You should see this in the upper left corner


Copy and paste the Japanese name (shown below) of the item you want to buy in the text field at (1). Then, push the button (2) to begin search.

Sword of Moonlight: ???????????

King's Field: ?????????

Shadow Tower Abyss: ??????????

Yahoo Auctions will then show you the items that matched your search.
Look at the pictures and when you find what you're looking for click on its link.

In the middle-right of the item's listing screen there is a block of info about the listing.
Here's a rough translation so you know what it means:


Current price = current bid in Yen (1 yen = approximately 1 cent US so 7980 yen = $79.80US)
Remaining time -1st (1?) = ?means 'day' so, 1 day before auction ends
Maximum amount bidder = total number of bidders (no bids in this example)
Hope successful bid price = buy it now price (unlike ebay, the buy it now remains available even after someone bids)
A bid unit = how much you have to raise the current bid to place a new bid
Exhibition area = Item's location

To do an auto-translation of the item page, copy its address then go to:
https://translation.infoseek.co.jp/?ac=Web&lng=en



Paste the item's address into the text field.
Mark the bulls-eye (1) (says 'translate Japanese to English')
Push the button (2)

After your item's translated page loads, you will see the sellers item description info at the bottom part of the page. Japanese tend to give minimal descriptions because it is assumed that a seller will be honest and mention any serious defects in the item.

If you find an item you would like to buy or bid on, there are several online bid services who will deal with the seller and forward the item to you.
Celga is the one I recently used: https://celga.com/faq.html#ques1
Akibado is another such service: https://www.akibado.com/auction.html

You should definitely read all the terms and info for any service you might use.
They usually require a deposit for part or all of the purchase price in advance. Celga accepts paypal; I don't know about other services. When I used their service they required half my maximum bid, or all of my 'buy it now' in advance. After they received the item from the Yahoo seller, they sent a bill for the sellers shipping cost and the cost for shipping to the US plus their $10 fee.

Hope all this info helps someone. After years of looking everywhere, I finally got a copy of Sword of Moonlight this way YAY! It hasn't arrived yet but hopefully there won't be any problems.


- Todd DuFore (DMPDesign)
Site Founder
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#2
What was your final price?

PS: If anyone ever wants to sell me an original set with a ridiculous finders fee I might be pliant... I tried to import a set thru the usual channels for a while, but I'm not cut out to hopscotch thru all this rigamarole. I'd rather pay someone double what it's costing you guys. But I think I'll wait and see what's From's reaction is to all this Som hoopla first if any (for the love of From Software)

I have a hard enough time keeping my PSN account stocked with yen. So much for free trade.
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#3
Btw, if anyone is really searching for "??????????" I have a copy.

Now I can even upload it to my PS2 harddrive before selling it Evil


PS: You all can thank me later for the Unicode in Todd's post Ninja
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#4
How much u want for STA, ... REALLY? Cause I might be interested.
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#5
(2010-02-28, 01:22 AM)AsusX2 link Wrote:How much u want for STA, ... REALLY? Cause I might be interested.

Usually the biggest pain for me in just incentive to take something to the postal office. Sometimes my games just sit out in the open air for a long time (a usually futile attempt to remind me to play them) but Abyss looks as good as new... you could probably pass it for new/mint if you could replace the thin transparent plastic that accompanies PS2 games somehow.

That said you can PM me about what you can afford. I probably won't turn you down unless you really try to low ball it. Assuming you're in the states I only ask you pay in full up front because whenever I try to do a half now half on delivery deal I never ever get the second half... it's a game I've grown tired off. Usually I'm just pleased to see old games getting some new play.

I also have KF2, KF4, and all the Armored Core games from Master of Arena to AC4 (not for sell) ...all Japanese imports. I'm going to get a TB or more backup drive next time I'm in town, so I can just backup any of these games / copy them onto my PS2 / sell them if anyone wants them. The PSOne games I can get off PSN.



That reminds me... I was going ot make another post, but this thread is sort of fitting...


I wonder if we know anyone with the Dark Side box (or even the similar Armored Core boxset) ...because I'm curious if any official extra goodies came with those that could be scanned / etc.
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#6
I just found a sweet deal for Armored Core 4Answer (or whatever)

https://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vi...0385345638

And hey, there is a ST Abyss auction (https://cgi.ebay.com/PS2-SHADOW-TOWER-AB...2556d00442)

That's no cheaper than I'd let it go for. There is another up in the 60~70$ range, so I'd say that's a good buy. Of course I wouldn't mind having 30$ in my paypal account to cover the cost of that game I just bought... but you don't really have the same sort of safety mechanisms as you do when going thru ebay if you just do an arbitrary paypal transaction.

Anyway, if you want to drop 30$ in my paypal account (PM me) I'm probably going into town in the next few days and should be able to get it in the mail. I wouldn't mind the patronage.

I didn't think scoring Abyss would be as tough a get as Som.

EDITED: Freakin oh yeah, what's with all the Japan to US 4$ shipping rates?? I can get used to this Ninja
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#7
What's this?? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armored_Core_5 (5 meter AC??? That can't be right?? 10 meters doesn't even sound right...an AC's foot being the size of a large truck)
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#8
I asked From-Software whether they send off SoM to North America.

-----
Q1. How much is it in total when sending it out to North America in main body + shipping fee?
Q2. Remittance method?
Q3. Is English also OK for an order mail?
Q4. Can another titles (Shadow Tower Abyss etc.) also be ordered simultaneously?

A1.A2.A3. I am sorry, it is a response only of Japan as for sales of SoM. Please accept it.

A4. At our company, direct sales are omitted other than SoM. Please purchase another title in a store or an Internet shopping site.
-----

It seems that they are not going to accept a request of a North America resident though regrettable.
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#9
dear mr coffee,
Could you please find out if SOM is truly abandonware. Many sites claim that it IS, however , the information you posted would indicate that not only is SOM NOT abandonware, but FROM does not want us to have SOM, and would mean I will have to ABANDON SOM all together....... Considering all my lastest advancements have involved reverse enginering of the files , and as you stated once before it violates the EULA, and it seems like even having SOM in the US is a crime....... please help me with this information as I have 6 months invested in my project. and I only started using this program because I was under the assumption that SOM was abandoned.
I am so upset right now I don't what to do.

Thank you sir for your prompt answer on this matter........................Madison Lastrega
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#10
Madison-San,

Please wait a few days for my reply.
I need time for read and write English.
I am sorry.

Coffee
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