I am probably wrong, but to me,something of Noun's fine opening post points to the elephant in the room. i.e. the arch-caster for CoH: Harlequin.
Harlequin - Terrence O'Brien - had no sides; he always transmitted as a genuinely enthusiastic person - clearly highly intelligent -who never portrayed a toxic element. He sprung out of nowhere into C0HO, took the initial toxic hits- 'Who are you?' - in his stride- and proceeded to gather support where 'Tales of Heroes' had left off.He was innovative with his casts- no fear of webcams - he was -crucially- entertaining and positive, so that those who followed him, will not forget "Bazooka Joe" or "Panzerschrek Johann".Nor indeed,Harlequin's passion for Calliopes!
I recall Imperial Dane begging for a game of his to be cast by Harlequin- I recall Inverse ( the GR Admin for CoHO (who took over from Hill Home), who damns CohO now) taking part in a Harlequin leet tournament, with others like Nystrom. And this was after Inverse had cast his first educational cast re Langres on CoHO. And I recall Krebs subsequent pathetic attempts to emulate Harlequin's style, with mis-pronunciation of German words. Except it never came off(for me), bcs the copy was so bald
When CoHO was sadly dismantled. Harlequin attempted to belatedly learn vCoH, whilst growing DOW Retribution. He had the support of people like Budwise Reborn and Nosliw Reborn. But the good ole boys from GR.org were out there, sniping hard and viciously. I think even their jaundiced view on life would have been overcome, but sadly, commercial opportunities led elsewhere and seduced Hsrlequin away.
After he had gone, Bridger -another premium caster - who returned with Rogers, to put out some lovely vCoH training casts - lamented the loss of opportunity to cast with Harlequin
I never, ever heard a tribute to Harlequin from SNF
SNF currently have 4,338 followers.Harlequin stopped 3 years ago with 2,998 followers. Go figure.
PS Both Krebs and Basilone were CoH) noobs,who tried to recreate a self-justifying back-history to exculpate themselves with the good ole boys,but that is another story.....
I never understood this obsession with Harlequin. I never got the sense that he cared for the community; he really only cared for himself. Back when CoHO didn't have replays, GR was given a backdoor means of accessing replays and told not to reveal this until Relic was able to implement it in a user-friendly way for everyone. Harlequin had a friend who worked at Relic and gave him access to replays as well, and while we at GR were respecting Relic's NDA, Harlequin, an entirely unknown caster with no history in CoH and seemingly no regard for the community, starts posting replay casts. Needless to say, those of us working so hard on growing the game's community were pretty upset about that.
And when he joined GR as a caster, he really only did it as another avenue of self-promotion. He didn't participate in the community beyond posting links to his casts, and he didn't help with the site at all. He hosted a tournament, sure, but it was a clusterfuck of organization and again was an avenue of self-promotion for his casts. After CoHO went under, he left for DoW2.
As for his casts, they were painful as hell to listen to if you had any knowledge whatsoever of the game he was casting. He never really tried to improve his game knowledge, even after it was pointed out to him a million times, and his only saving grace was his ability to entertain people with drab play-by-play.
With that in mind, why would SNF feel obligated to recognize him? He didn't really do anything for the community in my eyes. He's the kind of caster that gets people interested in himself, not in the game. He's like Krebs. People are going to watch them regardless of what game they cast. And when they switch games, so do their viewers. They never really engaged with the community.
I don't think that's the type of person Noun and Relic are looking for; at least I hope it's not. I hope they don't want to promote someone who doesn't really engage the community and who jumps ship the moment they find something more profitable, even if they do attract new people to the game.