No scenario creates a flattering portrait of the 4e Reamers...ur, Realmers.
But to each his own. I can even understand why some people prefer the 4E realms to the old ones. I would have prefered if they had created a new setting for those people (namely their PoL-Setting) and let the Realms be as it was before the Spellplague. In this case they probably had gotten my money for both settings. They didn't and prefered to lose a customer instead.
Exactly. The 4gotten realms might be a decent setting, but they're not a decent Forgotten Realms.
If they had decided not to cash in on the name recognition, adapted 4e to the setting (the way it's supposed to be done), and created a new setting, my opinion of wotc would probably be different.
Meaning what? Like Vampire's Malkavians?
Oh, and apparently the Kalshtar are all insane.
Malkovians? ;-P
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Two things about 4e and the realms:
A lot of people who like 4e HATED D&D before the new edition (I'm getting this from message board posts and what not, so it isn't scientific or anything).
The people who designed the 4e Realms, for the most part, HATED the Forgotten Realms (this comes from reading WotC designer blogs, Wizard's web page and what not, so I'm going to go out on a limb and say this isn't an opinion). A lot people who like the 4e Realms HATED the old Realms (this, again, comes from reading various forums, so, you know, grain of salt and all).
So, Kevin, what we have here is a campaign setting updated by people who hated what came before for people who hated what came before. If I had to guess, mostly younger people (on both sides of the equation) who felt like outsiders since they weren't there to watch the Realms grow organically from the beginning.
While I might not agree with all your suppositions (I DM a 4E group and play in a 3.5 group and like both editions... and I'm by no means a younger player as I've been playing since the 1E days), I do think you touched on one of the things the 4E Realms designers were probably trying to achieve. That is, trying to bring new players to the Realms that hadn't been there since the beginning to watch them grow organically.
Personally, as a long-time D&D player who never really got into the Realms, they didn't achieve this aim as far as I'm concerned, as I'm not that interested in the 4E Realms either, but that could just be me.
I have a theory about why the Realms were first to get the edition change treatment. IMO, WotC needed to get a campaign setting released as soon as possible after the release of the new edition, and as the first setting release for the new edition it would have to sell well (by whatever definition WotC/Hasbro use to measure the success/failure of a release). In this context, FR was probably considered a "safe" option for a first release as it was a known quantity with a fairly...
I value you taking the time to share this theory. Very interesting.
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If they had decided not to cash in on the name recognition, adapted 4e to the setting (the way it's supposed to be done), and created a new setting, my opinion of wotc would probably be different.
And a big resounding, hell yes, from me on this point.
The utter failure to design a new setting to demonstrate whatever design was required for their new game demonstrated incompetence. Somehow, good design was defenestrated in favor of using somethin' quick! And that, to me, is a fatal example of cutting corners when it's easier to destroy a world than to create a new one. Sick.
Yes, it demonstrates incompetence. Period. Less thought, poorly thought through design plan. Failure to use enough imagination, and failure to consider the community, and the effect of their decisions. This was a grab at fast, low hanging fruit, for profit. And, as such, is a big pile of SUCK.
And this is not an insult directed at a particular person, this is a clear observation based on poor decisions, products and outcomes, and directed at the roles of desginer and executive stakeholders who make final decisions.
*still makes me ill*
Edit: Not to mention a retro-fit choice is a poor design decision in most cases, even at face value, compared to new design.
I also felt the biggest problem with Avatar was that it was just too soon: for most at least of Richard Awlinson
who was richard awlinson again? I remember it was a pen name....All-in-one..... but I can't remember who was behind it and why they felt the need to conceal the actual authors. Its one of the few Forgotten Realms series I haven't read...
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RPG Superstar 2009 Top 32, 2010 Top 8
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who was richard awlinson again? I remember it was a pen name....All-in-one..... but I can't remember who was behind it and why they felt the need to conceal the actual authors. Its one of the few Forgotten Realms series I haven't read...I also felt the biggest problem with Avatar was that it was just too soon: for most at least of Richard Awlinson
Wikipedia to the rescue: Richard Awlinson
If they had decided not to cash in on the name recognition, adapted 4e to the setting (the way it's supposed to be done), and created a new setting, my opinion of wotc would probably be different.
And a big resounding, hell yes, from me on this point.
The utter failure to design a new setting to demonstrate whatever design was required for their new game demonstrated incompetence. Somehow, good design was defenestrated in favor of using somethin' quick! And that, to me, is a fatal example of cutting corners when it's easier to destroy a world than to create a new one. Sick.
Yes, it demonstrates incompetence. Period. Less thought, poorly thought through design plan. Failure to use enough imagination, and failure to consider the community, and the effect of their decisions. This was a grab at fast, low hanging fruit, for profit. And, as such, is a big pile of SUCK.
And this is not an insult directed at a particular person, this is a clear observation based on poor decisions, products and outcomes, and directed at the roles of desginer and executive stakeholders who make final decisions.
*still makes me ill*
Edit: Not to mention a retro-fit choice is a poor design decision in most cases, even at face value, compared to new design.
Not to bash 4e but this is the very thing I fill they did to the core or spirit of the Game. I really feel marketing had more to do with 4e creation than pride or creativity.
My campaigns have been established in the Realms since 1E. But with 4E new direction in the Realms I can hardly destroy or wipe clean 20 years of campaigns. I have NPCs as dear to me as Eliminster. Sure I guess I could ignore the changes to the feel of the game and the fluff, but why? I play in the Realms cause I dont want to build my own World.
Thats why we buy settings right? It was easy to ignore the chages to the Realms when 3E came around but it would require to much work on my part to convert all my NPCs and such to 4E rule set.
Conversion was made "easy" for us for every edition until now....why is that....I think it was a respect for a DM and Players collective work in either their homebrewed campaign or those published.
The pre Hasbro WOTC where even kind enough to allow folks to convert the 2E campaign settings with little to no restrictions.
Which is another reason I was bothered by WOTC attitude towards its older versions....and with a revival of Old School gaming I can see why they decided to pull their PDFs.
Cant run the Realms Old school if we pull all the resources. I know folks that run C&C ruleset in Greyhawk and the Realms. I run Mystara using L&L. Thank God i was able to get all my gazateers!
Anyway just my observations, un soured and un documented, pure opinion with no true ill will meant to the 4E fan boi's.
Eric
For me, it comes down to new music.
Stereotypically, everyone stops listening to new music at some point in their lives and get entrenched in their era of music (usually, that which they grew up with).
So the idea that 4e FR was written by people who didn't like the old FR for people who didn't like the old FR makes sense to me. PUT YOUR PITCHFORK AND TORCH DOWN! My 1987 box has the ancient maps, the brown softcover atlas, the Dragon giant maps and even the transparent hex grids I never used still in it.
I wrote it makes sense to me. I don't like it. I don't like most of the new music that comes out either, but I understand why it does. Newer generations have an inherent need to create something that they can call their own. RPG campaign settings are, apparently, no different.
I am personally not much affected because after the Time of Troubles my campaign's timeline unfolded much differently from published works. I remember when the other DM's and I got together and asked, "Okay, are we going to try to adhere to this stuff or are we going to make it our own; knowing that future published material won't be as useful to us?" We decided to go the homebrew route. And now, roughly 20 years later, what has transpired in our FR is so dramatically different, it might be unrecognizeable. For example:
The Elves returned from their self-imposed exile around 1995 AD. They expanded the High Forest, after Waterdeep was obliterated by Halaster Blackcloak's tsunami, became the dominant nation of the west. A wild mage in the Lonely Tower (north of the Cold Wood) secretly transformed Anauroch back into a forest (yet kept it hallucinatorily terrained as a desert) as part of his quest to become a gold box Immortal. Sembia conquered Cormyr and is now Semyr.
I understand that many of you are saying, "But they didn't have to do it that way!" But it is done. Make the decision that many of us have, stop listening to the new music and enjoy what you love.
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I still wonder what part the "Living Realms RPGA" had to play in this. Did they change to setting due to the perceived "Canon Lawyers"? Were they afraid some fanboy would get all pissy if some piece of unknown lore got left out, so they decided to "level the playing field"?
Maybe they were just intimidated knowing that casual posters at Candlekeep knew more Realms lore than the 4e Realms design team...
I stopped listing to the blogs but in more then one the designers say they did not know much about the setting and even go as far as say they really did not like the setting.
Such people should never be allowed to work on such a well liked setting.
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I stopped listing to the blogs but in more then one the designers say they did not know much about the setting and even go as far as say they really did not like the setting.
Such people should never be allowed to work on such a well liked setting.
AGREED! It is a privelege to be in such a position. To be a steward carries much more responsibility.
*and I know all of the arguments, and still conclude that accountability to serve the community weighs heavily on our list of values, though perhaps not on theirs*
And let no one tell you different. A wize king does not send a 1st level adept to do a job fit for a 9th level Lord.
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Which is another reason I was bothered by WOTC attitude towards its older versions....and with a revival of Old School gaming I can see why they decided to pull their PDFs.
Cant run the Realms Old school if we pull all the resources. I know folks that run C&C ruleset in Greyhawk and the Realms. I run Mystara using L&L. Thank God i was able to get all my gazateers!
YES. This was a f$~&in' kick in the head that I will never forget. What b~*&&#~*. I wonder if there was anything on the level of open game material that came from Forgotten Realms. If so, I would republish for First Edition gamers in a heartbeat.
Was there anything open game for FR?
I stopped listing to the blogs but in more then one the designers say they did not know much about the setting
You know, when we have a situation like that in our company, we make sure people get the knowledge they need. If they need 4 weeks worth of training courses, so be it. That's what it takes....
and even go as far as say they really did not like the setting.
...and people like that wouldn't be hired to begin with. Well, creating software solutions doesn't require people to like software, but since it's windows based, a linux fatbeard who refuses to use a kernel he hasn't compiled himself and gets all smug when he hears someone paid for his OS will probably not get a job.
And before someone goes on and says "wait KaeYoss, this is different, wotc has been bought by hasbro and things are different.": Our company has recently been bought by a company that makes hasbro look like a child's flea market stand, and they haven't forced us to abandon quality to cut costs or anything. If anything, it was the opposite: More funds to put into training and so on.
And it's not like they had a giant in-house FR encyclopedia for continuity that they could checked...
And it's not like they had a giant in-house FR encyclopedia for continuity that they could checked...
It is called candle keep, they have alot of that stuff listed anyone can look. Also some of the stuff they did not know in that podcast was in the 3.0 FRCS. Also a few comments made it seem as if you did know it you were an over blown fanboy with no life.
And ya know they did have ED's number
Yeah, not to mention these great resources. But I'm pretty sure I remember Salvatore referring in an interview to a massive set of binders that were assembled which tracked continuity for everyone who worked on FR. What did Wotci do with those, we can only wonder.
Yeah, not to mention these great resources. But I'm pretty sure I remember Salvatore referring in an interview to a massive set of binders that were assembled which tracked continuity for everyone who worked on FR.
I had forgotten about them. If I recall they started from the 40 or so note books Ed sent the staff before the gray box came out. Gods I know some realms fans that would give an eye to get ahold of some of that stuff :)
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And it's not like they had a giant in-house FR encyclopedia for continuity that they could checked...
Right! It makes sense that the fan-created timeline got published. Lord knows that paid designers, former stewards of our game, couldn't put that together... (based on what's been said of their comments)
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RPG Superstar 2009 Top 32, 2010 Top 8
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I still wonder what part the "Living Realms RPGA" had to play in this. Did they change to setting due to the perceived "Canon Lawyers"? Were they afraid some fanboy would get all pissy if some piece of unknown lore got left out, so they decided to "level the playing field"?Maybe they were just intimidated knowing that casual posters at Candlekeep knew more Realms lore than the 4e Realms design team...
Thanks, I needed that laugh. Sadder because it's true.
One wonders why any god would ever want to take a post like this - the god of magic must be a red headed stepchild of Faerunian family.
Oh man. My ribs!
Hey Matt:
<deleted>
Hope you took that in the spirit in which it was intended. I have found trying to either reason civilly, or loosing my temper and going from arguing to wanting to put certain people's heads in vices, to accomplish nothing other than just raising my blood pressure. I think there are a (very) few disingenuous posters around here, who like to play it cool and make other people get upset. I share your frustration, for what it's worth.
*sigh*
Another reason for the switch was supposedly the difference in ruleset. I acknowledge designers' explanations, but I do not agree with their solution - after all, with epic NPCs running all over the Realms it would not be difficult for Mystra to go mad at the way things work and simply use her power to remake the nature of magic - and, as an added benefit, there would be finally a goddess of magic who takes a proactive stance instead of being victimized due to latest vile scheme concocted by designers.
Regards,
Ruemere
Ya know I always thought the easy way would be for Mystara to take the shadow weave and combine it with the weave. Doing so reworks magic and changes her toward LN as she was before the midnight issue.
there explains magic changes done.
What did Wotci do with those, we can only wonder.
I guess they couldn't get anyone to do an audiobook version so they were useless to them.
Another reason for the switch was supposedly the difference in ruleset.
Anyone too incompetent to adapt the rules to the world instead of the other way around should be fired.
It's like a programmer suggesting that all prices in a shop should be turned into whole numbers ($10 instead of $9.99) because he used int instead of double for the price attribute and can't be bothered to rewrite the code. He'd be fired so fast and hard he'd leave red skid marks on the street outside.
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Regardless of what was, is, or will be the Forgotten Realms, the name alone is a well known Brand name.
So WoC had the choice to either start a new Brand Name "PoL" and hope that Consumers won't get confused with FR, Ebberron and PoL, or simply use FR for a different setting.
Look at 2nd edition with it's multiple Settings and books for these settings. And all competing for the same market.
You know, that the FR novels make the cash, not the roleplying books. And, seing that FR books are often in the bestseler Lists, I guess there are cmore FR readers than there are active roleplayers.
I also guess that most readers do not care much if the realms get changed as long as they have Drizzt and/or Sword and Sorcery.
Regardless of what was, is, or will be the Forgotten Realms, the name alone is a well known Brand name.
So WoC had the choice to either start a new Brand Name "PoL" and hope that Consumers won't get confused with FR, Ebberron and PoL, or simply use FR for a different setting.
Look at 2nd edition with it's multiple Settings and books for these settings. And all competing for the same market.
You know, that the FR novels make the cash, not the roleplying books. And, seing that FR books are often in the bestseler Lists, I guess there are cmore FR readers than there are active roleplayers.
I also guess that most readers do not care much if the realms get changed as long as they have Drizzt and/or Sword and Sorcery.
Except that they also lost novel readers over this.
Except that they also lost novel readers over this.
Killing off all present non-elven/immortal characters by jumping 100 years ahead does tend to do that.
Hm... "4-gotten Realms - the edition and novel line for (dark) elf fanboys, everyone else is dead"?
Time for a massive unfocused ramble.
I started FR with Forgotten Realms Adventures. I quickly got up to speed on all the 1st edition stuff, and have followed it since.
Admission: I hated 3rd edition FR RPG products.
Perhaps this was because I was used to thinking in terms of 2nd edition Realms. You know, somewhat lurid, with powerful NPCs, very much Ed- and Jeff Grubb-styled realms. A blatant mary jane character called Arilyn Moonblade. The firm belief that evil wasn't very successful in the Realms that stemmed from the 2nd edition writers' guidelines, tempered by incessantly brutal and violent input from Ed (remember Spellfire? Shadows of Doom?). It may be that I am lenient today merely because I grew up with it, but I still love the Realms of the Volo's guides.
Then, it was time for 3rd edition Realms. WotC made a revision of the writers' guidelines, and suddenly one bad thing after another happened to the powerful NPCs. 3rd edition was split even further than 2nd: Ed keeping it up with his own style, but with everything that happened, we saw more and more success come to the villains of the Realms. The lurid passages got cut, no more Caldwell and such, instead every selling point was made with violence. RPG products drew this even further than the novels. The Realms had been completely sanitized, and it was hard to see any sort of balance to the villainous march after the Harpers got cut from the storymakers. Their replacements, the Silverstars, never got any sort of screen time, unless I missed something. And of course, the explanation was that "the PCs had to shine, not the NPCs". However, those PCs were utterly absent from the storyline, and the darkness soon became ridiculous. Another trend was that the later RPG content of 3rd edition merely strip-mined the backstory, explaining where 2nd edition hinted.
I didn't dislike ALL of it. Some was ok. The Return, Seiveril's crusade retaking Myth Drannor was fine, for example.
Now, taking on the task of making a new edition after this was not a sweet deal. I appreciate the difficulties WotC faced. I suppose their thinking was: We need to make it Points of light. We need significant masses of Dragonborns. We need flying earthmotes, because WoW has them. We still haven't killed off all the powerful NPCs, so let's. And oh, man, there is a big backstory to this thing. Let's just kill it all off by making a time jump. Oh, and Mystra suxx0r too.
Take a look at the final suite of super adventures: Cormyr, Shadowdale and Anauroch. They ended up with the heroes preventing the assassination of Mystra. But even so, the plot succeeded, just a few years later. In a fit of lame dislogic, they still got their spellplague.
They made the NPCs dead or of no consequence. They got the Earthmotes. Tastefully, they put Dragonborn into a little-used area.
However, they didn't do a good job on the time jump. From what I see, apart from massive geographical changes like new continents and big rifts, EVERY SINGLE TOWN IS STILL IN THE SAME PLACE.
They didn't do a good job on the points of light either. With the advent of the Empire of Shade, a case could be made that 4th is even LESS PoL than 3rd.
Admission #2: I hate 4th edition FR RPG content even more.
There isn't one thing about it that feels fresh or interesting. It feels only generic. Like in "Make sure there is no adventure anyone drew up that you COULDN'T run there, okay? That should save on our adventure writing costs. Oh, and add some more WoW stuff, they have lots of players, you know?"
No, whatever they tried to do, they failed, miserably. I can always use the old stuff, but...
EDIT: Oh, right. I just want to take the time to thank all the old people who make it possible for a grognard like me to have some people who share my views. =)
Maybe they were just intimidated knowing that casual posters at Candlekeep knew more Realms lore than the 4e Realms design team...Well put.
Another way to think of it: The Forgotten Realms was WOTC's Middle Earth, and they decided to nuke it and start over again.
"Middle Earth is nice, and sells well, but those hobbits need to go. Oh, and we want mortal human wizards, who can blow up things. And tieflings need to get in. Make it so balrogs are no devils who seduce mortals to produce offspring. Then we cut away Mordor and Gondor, whipe out all surviving Numenorians and resurrect Sauron!"
People who did not know FR and hated it's history made a setting for people who did not know FR and hated it's history.
All so they could keep the name of the setting.
Pathetic, and maybe not even commercially sucessful if a lot of the former fans who bought all books of the FR stopped buying new material.
Regardless of what was, is, or will be the Forgotten Realms, the name alone is a well known Brand name.
So WoC had the choice to either start a new Brand Name "PoL" and hope that Consumers won't get confused with FR, Ebberron and PoL, or simply use FR for a different setting.
Look at 2nd edition with it's multiple Settings and books for these settings. And all competing for the same market.
You know, that the FR novels make the cash, not the roleplying books. And, seing that FR books are often in the bestseler Lists, I guess there are cmore FR readers than there are active roleplayers.
I also guess that most readers do not care much if the realms get changed as long as they have Drizzt and/or Sword and Sorcery.
You touched on something that bugs me about WotC. The Realms has been reduced to a "Brand Name". Thats just sad.
Eric
People who did not know FR and hated it's history made a setting for people who did not know FR and hated it's history.
All so they could keep the name of the setting.
Pathetic, and maybe not even commercially sucessful if a lot of the former fans who bought all books of the FR stopped buying new material.
People who loved the Forgotten Realms should check out the Pathfinder Chronicles.
Besides, I think 4th Edition could have benefitted from its own "native" setting (i.e., one build on the rule assumptions and structures of 4th Edition Dungeons & Dragons).
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RPG Superstar 2009 Top 32, 2010 Top 8
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Hey Matt:
<deleted>Hope you took that in the spirit in which it was intended. I have found trying to either reason civilly, or loosing my temper and going from arguing to wanting to put certain people's heads in vices, to accomplish nothing other than just raising my blood pressure. I think there are a (very) few disingenuous posters around here, who like to play it cool and make other people get upset. I share your frustration, for what it's worth.
Well since I didn't see the redacted part, it's all good :P
I try to be civil, I don't always succeed.
You probably didn't miss much, Matt. It was just a piece of advice about getting drawn in by people who might be purposefully trying to anger you and then use you as a negative example. The longer it stayed up, the more I worried that it would either sound paternalistic or that certain people would use it as an excuse to drag other thread issues into this one, so I deleted it.
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All they needed to do was to nominate a region to be a "newbie" region - any wildlands, frontier or war-torn area suffices.
YES! For Crissake, wasn't the friggin' planet big enough? I just now picked up Maztica boxed set and am reading through.... but the world did have more unexplored land than was even defined...... why didn't they just follow Ruemer's suggestion?
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RPG Superstar 2009 Top 32, 2010 Top 8
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Besides, I think 4th Edition could have benefitted from its own "native" setting (i.e., one build on the rule assumptions and structures of 4th Edition Dungeons & Dragons).
I agree, especially since they have two never published settings they own, plus others that might fit PoL better.
Heck, from my little knowlege of 4.x The Realms could have been done better.
1) Dragonborn, rather than blowing up the planet another planar incursion, or one of those continents on the atlas that's undefined.
2) Powers and Rituals. Mystra absorbing both weaves and spreading the power out to all mortals, who are willing to tap it. This explains the power sources and new power soruces as 'discovering' them. Rituals also put places like Candlekeep (the library, not the website) back into importance as hints of old/new power sources and storehouses of rituals. This could even be explained as a proactive measure by Mystra, keeping power from becoming too focused in any one individual.
3) Tieflings. Well we already had many 'flavours' of Tiefling. just fluff them into races and add feats and paragon paths.
4) Eladrin. Myth Drannor. Simple enough.
5) Starting setting. Well Cormyr/Sembia have been pretty tore up. So you have your forrest kingdom/Robinhood vibe with big cities for urban adventures. You also have 'ruins' (old elf towns in Cormanthor, dwarven holds in the stone peaks) 'intrigue' (Zhents and Shade) "Evil Empire" (Shade) and 'Ancient city of magical knowlege' (Myth Drannor)
6) Points of Light. Um, the Silver Marches?
voila! Everything given in the PHB 1/DMG 1/MM 1 within the current existing realms framework. Required tampering? One Deity stops being stuffed in the fridge
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People who did not know FR and hated it's history made a setting for people who did not know FR and hated it's history.
All so they could keep the name of the setting.
Pathetic, and maybe not even commercially sucessful if a lot of the former fans who bought all books of the FR stopped buying new material.
People who loved the Forgotten Realms should check out the Pathfinder Chronicles.
Besides, I think 4th Edition could have benefitted from its own "native" setting (i.e., one build on the rule assumptions and structures of 4th Edition Dungeons & Dragons).
From what I can tell when I pop over there for a look-see, this is kind of what Candlekeep is doing. Quite a few of their more prominent posters have taken to Golarion (and Paizo products in general) quite well, actually.
I don't think it hurt that Ed was involved a little bit, and that Elaine is writing the fiction for LoF :)
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RPG Superstar 2009 Top 32, 2010 Top 8
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You probably didn't miss much, Matt. It was just a piece of advice about getting drawn in by people who might be purposefully trying to anger you and then use you as a negative example. The longer it stayed up, the more I worried that it would either sound paternalistic or that certain people would use it as an excuse to drag other thread issues into this one, so I deleted it.
It's all good. There's a reason I let everything go when I go to sleep. :-)
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From what I can tell when I pop over there for a look-see, this is kind of what Candlekeep is doing. Quite a few of their more prominent posters have taken to Golarion (and Paizo products in general) quite well, actually.
I don't think it hurt that Ed was involved a little bit, and that Elaine is writing the fiction for LoF :)
Dont forget Steven Schend and Sean K. Reynolds.
In my opinion, the setting for a campaign is as much a character in the game as any adventurer, god, or NPC. The more history, background, and politics that a setting has, the more interesting it is.
That's why I like Forgotten Realms so much. It has a rich and volumnious history that involves many cultures spanning multiple continents, with histories that stretch back thousands of years. If I want to set a campaign in the Chult, I can look the basic Campaign Setting book for 3E and get a pretty decent sense of what life is like in that region. Or, if I want to delve deeper, I can call upon a wealth of publications that stretch back some 30 years, which give me details about the regions politics, religion, and history. Incorporating that information into my campaigns or my characters makes the game seem so much more alive to me. It makes me feel as if I'm in a living, breathing world, rather than a player sitting at a table with a bag of dice.
4E changed all that. Many of the cultures are gone. Many of the gods are gone. The rich history, that was once such a source of inspiration, now seems so remote that it might as well not even be there.
Now I understand that the Forgotten Realms is a big place, and to some, it can seem overwhelming. Because of that, I can see why Wizards might want to pair down a few obscure cultures like the Mulhorrandi, or even eliminate some obscure gods like Elistraee. However, they went far beyond that. They killed off Mystra. They replaced Lathander with Amaunator. They got rid of the Weave and the Shadow Weave. They eliminated the phaerimm. These aren't just minor changes to the campaign setting. These are drastic changes that eliminate many of the major themes and villains that made the setting popular in the first place.
The only change that I really appreciate about 4E is that they made the Shadovar play a more prominent role in the Realms. Sure, it was nice that they brought the Shadovar to the Material Plane in 3E, but I always wanted a little bit more from them. The fact that they only had one floating city always made them feel like some retired CIA operative driving around in a motorhome. Now they have a whole empire, and to me, that makes them seem a little more... insidious.
On the whole, though, I was very disappointed with what they did to the setting, and it's a big reason why I didn't convert to 4E.
I'm done ranting now.
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I didn't switch to 4E, but I would have happily continued to buy FR novels and probably even the new FR campaign book and other materials just to keep up to date on FR. But now, what's the point. It's not FR anymore. It's only a brand name. I don't buy anything published by WOTC now. They have nothing for me anymore.