I love Icewind Dale, but at the same time I feel, I don't know, a little underwhelmed. I'm sure the nostalgia quotient will pick up for me as an actual release date gets close.
Yeah, I'm with you here. Also, if IWD/the North of the Western FR is an entire setting-book, rather than a large/epic adventure/series of adventures, I'm going to be very disappointed with WotC, frankly.
If Icewind Dale is the new setting being teased, they aren't trying to mess with us, and this isn't a "PR flub" as another poster claims. D&D superfans like us here on ENWorld think of "setting" as entirely separate "campaign settings" like Dark Sun and the Realms, but the D&D team is marketing to a much larger demographic these days then just us lifers.
You are really reaching here, and getting into some pretty silly territory, as a result, frankly. You're sneering at "lifers" and "superfans", and so on, but what you're describing has been pretty normal through D&D's history - which is to say, presenting an area of a setting as a setting. Whether it's an entire continent, like Maztica or Taladas, or just a region, like the Savage Coast, it hasn't been uncommon or unheard-of, and you're acting like it is. Trouble is, it's been historically unsuccessful. Most of the products which took that approach were somewhere between a flop and a moderate success, and most of them are largely forgotten.
Also, you talk about a "much larger demographic", but you seem to think said demographic is going to be hugely excited an entire setting, which they too are going to immediately realize is basically just the FR equivalent of Canada (with a bit of other stuff thrown in). And frankly I am very skeptical of this. My prediction is that, on the 5E subreddit, if WotC does present IWD/The North of the FR as an actual setting-book, not a huge adventure/adventure-series set there, people are not going to be impressed.
And they are far more representative of the "larger demographic" you're discussing than us.
All that said, I very much doubt "The North of the FR", let alone a region as relatively small as IWD actually is the next new setting book announced. I strongly suspect it is just a very big adventure, like Dragon Heist or the like. And the wider audience does love such adventures a lot more than we do here, so it makes sense to hype them.
If they are doing IWD in any format, I'll be interested to know if they've involved any of the game designers/writers who worked on the games. I know Josh Sawyer has been working on a product he can't discuss for a while, and it doesn't sound like a large-scale deal, so maybe.
