This was a great tribute to the community and I really liked putting a face to many of the community names. Greyshot was in it and is all grown up! I mentioned you in one of my threads thinking you left the COH universe like due to life or some new RTS game but glad to see he was part of the input team. Will Wards story also really inspired me. I am no map designer or as technically skilled with coding/developer skills but the video did make me ask myself.......What skills do I have that can contribute to Relic? I want in on this, selfishly thinking like wow they are living the dream. That's not dismissing the hours upon hours of hard work or stress they go through as any job does. It did make me stop and think.......How can I merge a passion into a day job, it's possible, these guys/gals are proof! Okay I won't quit my day job but the video was very inspiring that these are real people that love the same game even more than I do and they are committed to contribute and build off a great foundation. This is all to say........ A_E I am coming for you, I'm going to practice my witty jokes and befriend Stormless as the latest Coh 3 community caster for a US presence!

I recently read this article in my news feed PC Gamer and I know Rich was just writing a story in passing but I will say this as a fan of the game with no skin in the game or loyalty to Relic besides a fan of the company, just a 3rd party 100% pure gamer.

"If I was a faction man, though, I'd be sending Relic an invoice." - Stormless was referenced as the faction man. lol

I'll say this, to hopefully reassure Relic that not all people contributing are looking to exploit or take advantage of this approach to gaming in 2021. (Okay no matter what I say still get your legal department passing out nda's and your GC covering your six) but here is my take as a 3rd party observer.

Relic is not asking for a service and then taking someones good ideas and profiting off of it. Relic is asking for voluntary player engagement and feedback, now if said player chooses to pull an entire detailed pdf(stormless) and an entire faction is born with detailed comps then that was by choice and by love/passion for the game. For him to go to Relic and expect or even ask for compensation would be ludicrous, I know he didn't do that and that's not what I'm saying he did but the article was stating the concept as either a joke or an idea. 

To me, it's a form of gift-giving then gauging the recipients response then charging them for it depending upon how much they liked it. No, the biggest reward is seeing your work reflected in the final product of a game you play hours of and probably will for years. We play this game because it's fun to play, fun to watch, fun to try new ideas. Prime example is if Stormless was just doing this faction design for a quick payday, I bet it wouldn't have been as good as he probably actually made it. People doing work just for $$$ won't deliver the best product, it's that simple.

Keep going about COH 3 with this community-interactive way. As I mentioned in a previous post, anyone spending time reading/writing about CoH 3 wants it to succeed not because they love Relic or the developers or the trend to be involved in development feedback, they are doing it because they selfishly want a fun game to play and that's perfectly okay. The truth of the matter is I probably will continue to play original COH, COH2 even after COH 3 is released. They each bring their own story and experience and the exciting part is we not only have those previous titles as a foundation but now they have advancements in gaming technology, an experienced team and strong community to make this game great.

- Art of War (Stormless' future protege)