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KickStarter Confederate Express - what is this I don't even

Ranselknulf

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PC RPG Website of the Year, 2015 Codex 2016 - The Age of Grimoire Make the Codex Great Again! Grab the Codex by the pussy Insert Title Here RPG Wokedex Strap Yourselves In Codex Year of the Donut Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag.
That would make it more likely to be a scam then for sure.. although some people are retarded and trust their families to have their best interests in mind for them. Can't rule out somebody being a complete retard but he should offer refunds at the least.

If it's a family thing then maybe they will still be able to use the talent to finish the game. Although this is all speculation, I haven't heard of this game until 5 minutes ago.
 

Whiran

Magister
Joined
Feb 3, 2014
Messages
641
That would make it more likely to be a scam then for sure.. although some people are retarded and trust their families to have their best interests in mind for them. Can't rule out somebody being a complete retard but he should offer refunds at the least.

If it's a family thing then maybe they will still be able to use the talent to finish the game. Although this is all speculation, I haven't heard of this game until 5 minutes ago.
Here are the registrations for the company:

https://mycpa.cpa.state.tx.us/coa/s...Kilobite &Button=search&Search_ID=32052665448
http://www.bizapedia.com/fl/KILOBITE-INC.html

Make of it what you will but, chances are, there won't be any game forthcoming.
 

ColCol

Arcane
Joined
Jul 12, 2012
Messages
1,731
So, he and his brother are clearly some type of con-men. Hopefully getting caught for the house shit and the fact that the second project will fail means Karma is catching up to them.
 

Trash

Pointing and laughing.
Joined
Dec 12, 2002
Messages
29,683
Location
About 8 meters beneath sea level.
Shame. To give dues where they should be given. They did have two splendid trailers. Too bad all that talent and promise went into conning instead of making something neat.

Well, fuck them for being the cunts they are. Hopefully people will catch on asap. And you can be assured it is a total con by now. Knuckle Club has removed all links to kickstarter from the trailer and website. Instead asking directly for money. Con.
 

Roguey

Codex Staff
Staff Member
Sawyerite
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May 29, 2010
Messages
35,656
no one cares roguey. eat a dick.
Conned man spotted. Enjoying all that money you lost on ConEx?

http://www.biggerpockets.com/forums...enter-from-a-vacation-rental-property?page=10

I made a phone call, and Home Land security is aware of Pashanin, Maksym, and they are in the process of revoking his HIB visa and a person by the name of Haida Summers fill out a K-I visa application to marry Pashanin Maksym, and both had an appointment at 606 S Olive St Ste 1500, Los Angeles, CA 90014 on 07/18/2014 and they did not show.
Guess we can add marriage fraud to his list of attempted scams. Going to be nice when this jackass gets sent back to whichever Eastern European or Asian shithole he came from.
 

SmartCheetah

Arcane
Joined
May 7, 2013
Messages
1,076
I made a phone call, and Home Land security is aware of Pashanin, Maksym, and they are in the process of revoking his HIB visa and a person by the name of Haida Summers fill out a K-I visa application to marry Pashanin Maksym, and both had an appointment at 606 S Olive St Ste 1500, Los Angeles, CA 90014 on 07/18/2014 and they did not show.
Guess we can add marriage fraud to his list of attempted scams. Going to be nice when this jackass gets sent back to whichever Eastern European or Asian shithole he came from.

Pashanin sounds like a Russian/Ukrainian surname to me. Personally, I wouldn't trust any guy from these two countries at all, lol.
 
Joined
Nov 8, 2007
Messages
6,207
Location
The island of misfit mascots
He's a smart squatter though. Taking advantage of the time limits on casual rent agreements so that it's automatically converted to an ongoing monthly lease, is the kind of thing that brings tears of joy to an ex-lawyer like me.

Seriously, she expects me to feel sorry that she let out her primary asset - the equivalent of giving someone half a million dollars (or whatever the cost of a condo is in her part of the world) and saying 'you'll look after this for me, won't you?' - without going through an agent. I'm not even expecting her to get legal advice (because spending $300 on advice before you let out your $500,000 property is just silly); just use a fucking real estate agent who knows what the basic laws are.

And naturally she gets ass-fucked for her idiocy. The news site is calling him a squatter - but he isn't. He's there entirely legally, because she didn't fucking check what the laws were on residential tennancies, and didn't realise that you can't just evict someone without any contractual basis, just because you thought you could when you made the agreement.

There's an ancient, but reliable system, practiced by wise indigenous cultures all over the world, that helps avoid these problems. It's called a fucking contract - you write your expectations down, instead of keeping them in your fucking head, and have both side sign it so there's no shenanigans later. And if you don't know whether the contract is legal, then you get someone who does know to take a look at it.

Oh, but a webpage told me this would be a good idea, and wouldn't cause any problems, and lots of other people are doing it, so that removes all personal responsibility to check whether it suits my personal circumstances...

Edit: okay, that's being harsh. But one thing that used to annoy the crap out of me is how many people just don't get the concept of a 'law'. You'll give them legal advice, and they'll try to argue with you about it, sometimes getting angry at you because 'that's completely unfair!' [note: people who do this have unusual views about 'fairness'].

I'd always wonder whether they did the same thing with their doctors:
'Sir, you might want to take a seat. You have cancer.'
'But....that can't be right. I spend every weekend doing charity work! It's completely unreasonable for me to get cancer now.'
'It's a terrible shock, I know. I recommend joining a cancer support group to help you with that, but in the meantime you urgently need to start chemotherapy.'
'Chemotherapy? CHEMOTHERAPY??? Do you REALISE HOW MUCH CHARITY WORK I DO???'

It also happens that those same people either refuse to get legal advice, or (way more frustratingly) completely ignore your advice because it doesn't match their prior ideas about what the law should be (what do you mean this contract won't be enforceable? [6 months later] Why can't I enforce this contract - what am I paying you for goddammit???).

Oddly enough, I hardly ever got this once I shifted from civil litigation to criminal law. Crims are less idiotic than businessman, apparently.
 
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Galdred

Studio Draconis
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Developer
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Middle Empire
Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag.
There's an ancient, but reliable system, practiced by wise indigenous cultures all over the world, that helps avoid these problems. It's called a fucking contract - you write your expectations down, instead of keeping them in your fucking head, and have both side sign it so there's no shenanigans later. And if you don't know whether the contract is legal, then you get someone who does know to take a look at it.

Oh, but a webpage told me this would be a good idea, and wouldn't cause any problems, and lots of other people are doing it, so that removes all personal responsibility to check whether it suits my personal circumstances...
That could more or less apply to Kickstarter too...
 

Taluntain

Most Frabjous
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In before reliable news sources report that video games made him become a scamming squatter.
 

Galdred

Studio Draconis
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Developer
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Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag.
They already managed to get worldwide recognition for their brand name, and even managed to get an article in the mainstream press. They sure are genius marketers.
 

sser

Arcane
Developer
Joined
Mar 10, 2011
Messages
1,866,662
"Eviction is not cheap."

You're in California. Go down to the local Home Depot and hire a bunch of Mexicans to play Juarez deportes on these idiots and call it a day. The illegality of common sense should no longer be an issue.
 

almondblight

Arcane
Joined
Aug 10, 2004
Messages
2,549
There's an ancient, but reliable system, practiced by wise indigenous cultures all over the world, that helps avoid these problems. It's called a fucking contract - you write your expectations down, instead of keeping them in your fucking head, and have both side sign it so there's no shenanigans later. And if you don't know whether the contract is legal, then you get someone who does know to take a look at it.

Eh, a contract wouldn't have helped here. The issue is that eviction proceedings take a long time in California (and many other states) because of the legal rights tenants have after a certain period of time. The laws would pretty much be worthless if everyone could wright contracts stating that rent control, occupancy rights, etc. don't apply.

It also happens that those same people either refuse to get legal advice

Man, I'd be pretty pissed if you had given me legal advice.
 

MRY

Wormwood Studios
Developer
Joined
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Messages
5,703
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California
As a backer, this makes me kind of sad, but it's a remarkable story for all sorts of reasons. The one that I would seize upon is that the game actually looked (and still looks) pretty solid. Set aside the following: (1) he probably conned some good pixel artist into doing the art; (2) the lighting and physics effects were all faked; and (3) the features were all fanciful. Even when you do that, and even when you glance scornfully at some of the lamer sounding features (like modable weapons; but maybe I'm just not the right audience for that kind of thing) and little things (like the misspelling of "resurrect"), the basic game design all seems really good to an amateur like me: the stats, abilities, and perks seem simplified but meaningful, the lore seems pretty solid, the premise is cleverly anti-epic, etc. It basically reads and looks like someone who has a pretty decent understanding of what would make a good game; even assuming that the aesthetics are all the work of a conned artist (i.e., assuming that this Maksym guy didn't actually provide art direction himself), he still had to find the right artist to con and give at least rough descriptions of what he wanted.

I mean, in order to steal $30k from a bunch of dupes, he basically went out and designed a neat looking hybrid of X-Com 3 and Jagged Alliance with distinctive visuals and a consistent tone. Even if he didn't get past the rough outlines of the game, that still seems like a relatively hard way to make $30k compared to squatting in someone's home and running a hydroponic marijuana grow site (which I assume is why her electric bills have skyrocketed).

--EDIT--

By way of reference, consider this example, whereby a fraudster stole millions on a fake rip-off version of 24: http://boingboing.net/2005/09/25/dhs-the-series-the-s.html
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rfuoUZWV-kk

While that fraud was much more elaborate, the actual content was (I think) significantly inferior to that of Confederate Express. Put otherwise, no one who seriously liked shows such as 24 would watch that trailer (which is mostly stock footage) and react, "Wow, that looks amazing!" The fraud worked by targeting victims who were not the audience for the show and wanted to be "investors." By contrast, Confederate Express was a good enough pitch that fickle fans fell in love with it.
 
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Self-Ejected

Davaris

Self-Ejected
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Joined
Mar 7, 2005
Messages
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Idiocracy
There's an ancient, but reliable system, practiced by wise indigenous cultures all over the world, that helps avoid these problems. It's called a fucking contract - you write your expectations down, instead of keeping them in your fucking head, and have both side sign it so there's no shenanigans later. And if you don't know whether the contract is legal, then you get someone who does know to take a look at it.

The ancient system (before lawyers and big gov), was burly thugs with billy clubs. They got the job done cheaper and faster than any lawyer.
 

Burning Bridges

Enviado de meu SM-G3502T usando Tapatalk
Joined
Apr 21, 2006
Messages
27,562
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Tampon Bay
As a backer, this makes me kind of sad, but it's a remarkable story for all sorts of reasons. The one that I would seize upon is that the game actually looked (and still looks) pretty solid. Set aside the following: (1) he probably conned some good pixel artist into doing the art; (2) the lighting and physics effects were all faked; and (3) the features were all fanciful. Even when you do that, and even when you glance scornfully at some of the lamer sounding features (like modable weapons; but maybe I'm just not the right audience for that kind of thing) and little things (like the misspelling of "resurrect"), the basic game design all seems really good to an amateur like me: the stats, abilities, and perks seem simplified but meaningful, the lore seems pretty solid, the premise is cleverly anti-epic, etc. It basically reads and looks like someone who has a pretty decent understanding of what would make a good game; even assuming that the aesthetics are all the work of a conned artist (i.e., assuming that this Maksym guy didn't actually provide art direction himself), he still had to find the right artist to con and give at least rough descriptions of what he wanted.

I mean, in order to steal $30k from a bunch of dupes, he basically went out and designed a neat looking hybrid of X-Com 3 and Jagged Alliance with distinctive visuals and a consistent tone. Even if he didn't get past the rough outlines of the game, that still seems like a relatively hard way to make $30k compared to squatting in someone's home and running a hydroponic marijuana grow site (which I assume is why her electric bills have skyrocketed).

--EDIT--

By way of reference, consider this example, whereby a fraudster stole millions on a fake rip-off version of 24: http://boingboing.net/2005/09/25/dhs-the-series-the-s.html
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rfuoUZWV-kk

While that fraud was much more elaborate, the actual content was (I think) significantly inferior to that of Confederate Express. Put otherwise, no one who seriously liked shows such as 24 would watch that trailer (which is mostly stock footage) and react, "Wow, that looks amazing!" The fraud worked by targeting victims who were not the audience for the show and wanted to be "investors." By contrast, Confederate Express was a good enough pitch that fickle fans fell in love with it.

Hm. Seems you have really no idea what is going on, that's why you still come up with elaborate theories. What if he is just a bum who spends most of his time doing this and that programming and graphics wise?
It requires very little effort to make it look like you are making a game if your hobby is playing around with game making.
 

MRY

Wormwood Studios
Developer
Joined
Aug 15, 2012
Messages
5,703
Location
California
It seems like, even in the worst-case scenario, backing would be like voting: it won't make a difference and the person you're supporting is probably deceiving you, but all the same the tangible expression of your preferences is both somewhat psychologically rewarding and a useful way of solidifying your commitment to those preferences. As for being a useful idiot, like Pu Yi's Communist handler says in The Last Emperor, "Is that so terrible? To be useful?"
 

kris

Arcane
Joined
Oct 27, 2004
Messages
8,836
Location
Lulea, Sweden
It seems like, even in the worst-case scenario, backing would be like voting: it won't make a difference and the person you're supporting is probably deceiving you, but all the same the tangible expression of your preferences is both somewhat psychologically rewarding and a useful way of solidifying your commitment to those preferences. As for being a useful idiot, like Pu Yi's Communist handler says in The Last Emperor, "Is that so terrible? To be useful?"

You live in Cali? If someone stole I money then I would confront him about it. Not because of the money, but because I wouldn't let anyone steal from me when i can do something about it.
 

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