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Author Topic: Big delays ordering the Mega SD  (Read 12465 times)

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KenToad

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Big delays ordering the Mega SD
« on: October 09, 2019, 09:56:07 am »
Just a heads up that the Mega SD is not only super-expensive, but it's also shipping from Andorra, which apparently is causing huge delays in processing orders.

I ordered on Sept. 27th. A week later, I got a tracking number. Apparently, this is the sticking point, because DHL has only a tiny processing facility in Andorra that can reportedly process maybe 45 packages a day, to be sent to Spain to a larger DHL shipping facility. So, it could take a month or more for the tracking to become active as your package sits in an Andorran warehouse.

What this means is that the order could take 6-8 weeks to deliver, despite TerraOnion forcing you to pay 18 Euros for express shipping (although it should be truly express once it leaves Andorra).

You can read about this on TerraOnion's forums, but there are 41 pages to the shipping thread, so I thought I'd save you the trouble.

I'm still excited about getting the Mega SD. I was on the fence, but all the glowing reviews pushed me over the edge.

We'll see how the shipping pans out.

gamepimp

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Re: Big delays ordering the Mega SD
« Reply #1 on: October 09, 2019, 10:40:58 pm »
This was definitely the experience I had when I ordered mine. I got the tracking info from DHL, but didn’t receive the package until almost a month later. Pretty frustrating. :( Apparently T.O. moved to Andorra for lower taxes from what I read. However, they didn’t really advertise that fact. Some people in the EU had to pay big customs fees and were really upset about it because they thought T.O. was still in Spain. Thank goodness we don’t have to deal with that in the US....

KenToad

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Re: Big delays ordering the Mega SD
« Reply #2 on: October 10, 2019, 11:42:25 am »
This was definitely the experience I had when I ordered mine. I got the tracking info from DHL, but didn’t receive the package until almost a month later. Pretty frustrating. :( Apparently T.O. moved to Andorra for lower taxes from what I read. However, they didn’t really advertise that fact. Some people in the EU had to pay big customs fees and were really upset about it because they thought T.O. was still in Spain. Thank goodness we don’t have to deal with that in the US....

Yeah, I saw the allegations about the tax haven status of Andorra being the reason for the relocation. I'm not really sure how much a tiny business like TerraOnion benefits from that, especially forcing their EU neighbors to pay extra fees and not having reliably fast shipping. Anyway, I haven't seen any response from TerraOnion regarding the matter.

How do you like your Mega SD? It feels like the full functionality of it has yet to be unlocked, with game box previews hopefully eventually available and CD quality audio being added to a range of cartridge titles.

gamepimp

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Re: Big delays ordering the Mega SD
« Reply #3 on: October 14, 2019, 07:32:34 am »
The Mega SD is a pretty slick little device that seems to work as advertised. I haven't had much time to play around with it yet, but so far I'm pretty impressed. The best part is the fact that I can fire up a CD game and not have to stress about whether it will work or not. I have a model 1 CD unit that can be a bit temperamental. I had to replace the laser when I first got it and now I hold my breath when I load a game because I've had so many failures with the old one. I would love to see game box previews enabled on it. That would be pretty slick. I'm intrigued by the prospect of CD quality audio for non-CD games. Hopefully there will be some motivated users that will create those.  :)

KenToad

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Re: Big delays ordering the Mega SD
« Reply #4 on: October 17, 2019, 10:56:53 am »
My tracking just went active and the Mega SD is scheduled to be delivered this Monday the 21st. It took roughly two and a half weeks for Andorran DHL to process the package, about a month to deliver in total, assuming all goes smoothly from here.

I plan to finally play through the second half of Snatcher, although I think the game is overrated at this point ... too many stupid moments where you have to perform the same actions over and over again without enough signalling when it's the right thing to do. Overall, I would say it's worth playing, especially as a counterpoint to all those FMV stinkers, but it's poorly designed as a game and not worth the money it's going for, IMO.

gamepimp

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Re: Big delays ordering the Mega SD
« Reply #5 on: October 17, 2019, 02:47:14 pm »
Nice! :cheers: Once DHL gets it on a plane, it only takes a day or two to get it to you which is pretty impressive.

I hear all sorts of feedback about Snatcher being one of the best games for the Sega CD. I saw some gameplay footage the other day and just didn't think I could really get into it. I'm more interested in playing through the Working Designs games. I patched them all with the "Unworked Designs" patches that fix various aspects of the games to make them more enjoyable. I particularly want to play Popful Mail. The screenshots I've seen look pretty cool and it has gotten pretty good reviews. I just have to find the time to commit to a longer game like that...

KenToad

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Re: Big delays ordering the Mega SD
« Reply #6 on: October 22, 2019, 12:39:44 am »
I got the Mega SD cart today and have been testing it out. Everything perfect so far, although I did have to check the TerraOnion forums to find out why I couldn't access my firmware update normally through my account.

Patched the Un-Worked games (thanks for reminding me of those) and a couple of MD+ games (Strider with Arcade OST and Streets of Rage 2 with Remake OST), but I haven't had a chance to test them. I'd like to see Strider on the Genesis with some of the music from the Turbo CD version. Best of both worlds, especially with arcade emulation being basically flawless.

I'm surprised how many Sega CD games are still new to me after all these years of tinkering with emulation. Now I wish that I had given the system more of a chance back in the day. One thing I noticed was how many games try to add world and character building or even just ambience in the intros. Many have pretty good music and decent quality narration. Some of the FMV's are still fun to watch, although a lot of them are laughably bad. Still, it's all pretty amazing for the mid-90's. Of course, most pretty much lose all their charm in the gameplay department. Two perfect examples of this would be Brutal Paws of Fury and Cadillacs and Dinosaurs. The intros alone are worth a look.

Maybe Snatcher really does deserve its posthumous accolades. I'm enjoying it even more this time.

KenToad

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Re: Big delays ordering the Mega SD
« Reply #7 on: October 28, 2019, 05:20:31 pm »
I got Strider working with the arcade OST and I even replaced some tracks from the PCE CD version to hopefully get the best tracks from all versions of the game. It took more testing than I expected to make sure that the music transitions smoothly because sometimes the volume levels weren't matching up or a clip was too long for the cutscene, but it was otherwise as easy as swapping out wav files. It was also really fun to familiarize myself with the pretty great PCE CD versions of the Strider tunes.


gamepimp

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Re: Big delays ordering the Mega SD
« Reply #8 on: October 29, 2019, 07:04:19 am »
Sounds like you are getting some good use out of the Mega SD. I'm still tied up with some other projects right now and haven't had a chance to use mine much. Hopefully by the time I get around to it they will have worked out any bugs that might show up in the firmware and there will be some cool user hacks for games like the stuff you did with Strider.  :cheers:

KenToad

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Re: Big delays ordering the Mega SD
« Reply #9 on: October 29, 2019, 02:29:31 pm »
Terraonion just released an open source program to create screenshots or thumbnails to fill up the TV screen in the MegaSD menu. But, unfortunately, it looks like it will be a ton of work to get all the images associated with the correct games.

gamepimp

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Re: Big delays ordering the Mega SD
« Reply #10 on: November 12, 2019, 11:47:46 am »
Terraonion just released an open source program to create screenshots or thumbnails to fill up the TV screen in the MegaSD menu. But, unfortunately, it looks like it will be a ton of work to get all the images associated with the correct games.

Looks like there's a fairly easy way to create the thumbnails. Here's a nice video along with links to the files:


KenToad

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Re: Big delays ordering the Mega SD
« Reply #11 on: November 13, 2019, 03:18:38 pm »
I saw that. Now I'm trying to figure out how to manually correct the games that weren't found by scanning the roms.

gamepimp

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Re: Big delays ordering the Mega SD
« Reply #12 on: November 13, 2019, 04:13:08 pm »
I'm going to wait until I have my SD card set up with all the games I want on there before I run this. I'm not sure how you add images/info after the fact or for games that aren't located in the database. If you stumble across a way to do that, plz post here.

KenToad

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Re: Big delays ordering the Mega SD
« Reply #13 on: December 04, 2019, 10:34:54 am »
I now have 4 versions of MD+ Strider on my Mega SD. I have the arcade soundtrack, the arcade mixed with the PC Engine soundtrack, the PSX soundtrack mixed with about 4 of my favorite PCE tracks, and the PSX soundtrack by itself. So far, it's been really easy and fun to mix and match audio tracks, as long as the files are named correctly.

Now I wish that I could do this kind of thing to the original Strider arcade game. Some of the alternative music is amazing and the Genesis version of Strider really isn't a perfect port, gameplay-wise.