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Message: <blockquote data-quote="rogueattorney" data-source="post: 1981945" data-attributes="member: 17551">As for #1, it wasn't so much that they converted to 2e, but they did a botched job of it.  The Known World had been a campaign setting for 13 years when they made the conversion.  It had grown considerably more complex since its inception.  It may have originally been a simplistic setting, but it had grown up with its fans.  So much so that when TSR decided to re-introduce D&D as the 'kiddie' intro to the game with the 1991 boxed set, they felt like they needed a different campaign setting for new players - Thunder Rift.  Thus Mystara had become the 'grown ups' D&D setting.  When they moved it over to 2e, they turned it into the introductory 'kiddie' setting.  There was no consistency in tone from the last D&D products in 1993 to the first 2e products in 1994.  Compare the last Poor Wizards Almanac to the first (and only) Joshuan's Almanac for a good example.  As for #2, they did and didn't advance the time line.  Or maybe I should say, they advanced the timeline in a clumsy, inconsistant, and ham-fisted manor that seemed to have more to do with making the setting more appropriate for 2e campaigns than using any real creativity.The Karameikos of the Gazetteer was a new nation split across racial and religious lines, fractured by numerous factions all vying to plunge the nation into chaos and then arrange pick the pieces as they saw fit.  The Karameikos of the boxed set was a strong, unified nation - decidedly less interesting.  Further, there was no explanation for what made the change.  Did the Thyatians and Traladarans suddenly stop hating one another?  Did the schism in the Karameikan Church just go away?  What about all those refugees from Alfhiem?  Are there no problems at all incorporating them into the country?  Apparently Stephan crowned himself King, and everybody decided to love one another.The changes in Glantri were even worse.  The emergence of the joke character Prince Kol (formerly King Kol, ha, ha) at the expense of Thar was awful.  The change in law to allow Clerics into the country seemed to be an utter cop-out to make the setting more generic.  And another utter cop-out was the switch of the Nucleus of the Spheres - "now it drains Entropy" - whatever the heck that's supposed to mean.And don't even get me started on the changes made to the Red Steel campaign setting from the Princess Ark articles.  Ugh!!!But beyond even these changes...  The maps were just plain awful.  Nearly unreadable.  The content that they didn't change was often copied word-for-word from the previous Gaz, even when it didn't make any sense.  For example, the description of the Duke Stephan's sons had them as essentially the same characters even though they were now in their 30's whereas they'd been in their teens in the previous product.No, it's not that they converted to 2e and advanced the time line.  It's that TSR did an excessively poor job of it.  They marketed to a completely different fan base than those who were already buying the setting, so they lost their loyal customers and failed to gain any new ones, as evidenced by the discontinuation of the setting after less than 2 years and only about a half-dozen products.  Don't be fooled by the big, shiny boxes.  The original Gazetteers were far, far superior products.R.A.</blockquote>

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