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Well, the "doom" is only impending if they did something that is explicitly rendered void by the spellplague (e.g. negotiating a better trade agreement between Amn and Matztica), otherwise the spellplague is just annother event happening to them. Being hit by the spellplague is not a death sentence, a great lot of people where hit and not slain and not mutated and simply left to cope with the changed Faerun around them.

Unless their previous adventure was about something that was explicitly destroyed, the spellplague is just a bad day or month and then on to the next adventure.

And the FR could really need some novels set in the years during and after the spellplague to fill the gap between end of 3e and start of 4e.

^Yeah, and that's my point. All the stories/characters/nations modified/removed by the Spellplague (and by events in the late 1300s, like the Zentharim getting ''pwned'', Eilistraee and Vhaeraun undergoing the ''drowpocalypse'', Thay turning into an undead-fest, with Tam supreme and unrivaled by anyone) would get the canonical ''impending doom'', barring effective further development for any stories about them, and these are characterizing elements of the setting. But I still want to see stories about them (besides new stories), and that's a thing that only a split timeline or restoring many elements and tweaking some others could provide. And I agree with you that support for the wailing years would be welcome.

But you don't know how it ends. You know the heroes will eventually run in the spellplague (unles the novel set even deeper in the past and the heores won't live to see the spellplague a 200 years in the future anyway), but whatever that actually means is open.

They could die, a lot people did. They could be horribly mutated, also a lot of people did. They could only gain some minor mutation with beneficial powers, some people did. Or they could survive unscathed and be left to deal with the afermath, most people had to.

No, I wouldn't know the conclusion of a particular story, but I would know that things are going to end badly, and that the ending isn't something that enriches the setting, but some deus ex machina to remove flavorful elements from it, because too much lore. This surely would ruin the fun, at least to me, because it is hugely different if compared to reading about the past of someone who died achieving something relevant and in a way that was fitting for his/her goal in life, improving the Realms instead of depriving them of soemthing cool.

it is the best option to continue with it and fix the mistakes of late 3x and the early 4e well okay most of 4e.....


the split timeline is a good idea, but its flawed just like a reboot.  

Still, this risks alienating people who feel invalidated.  Why not welcome them on board too?  Though, this shouldn't be a problem, since Wizards said they'd have multi-era support.  But still, the inevitable spellplague future feels like an obligation with this method...  Perhaps splitting Classic Realms and Realms: Spellplague wouldn't be the worst idea.  This way it fits the modular approach DDN sets to accomplish without making others feel like they're not part of the setting anymore (The Abeir/Dawn War retcons/shoehorning didn't help at all)  But if they did that, it wouldn't surprise me if Wizards used this as a way to test the waters before seeing which way will be traveled further in the future... and which will be buried deep.  Well, time will tell.

The ''one portion of fanbase gets forgotten'' could very well happen with multiple eras support as well: the era that sells more gets supported, while the others fade into dust, or -as you said- get used as ''breeding ground'' for crazy ideas. It's up to WotC to not let this happen. Also, a split timeline is as resource draining as publishing sourcebooks/novels for every era, because by setting the ''crossroad'' at -say- 1372 DR WotC would have to develop stories set in that time, just like they would do if the timeline wasn't split, the only difference being that in the former case the possibilities are not limited by random destruction.

A split timeline itself can easily satisfy many fans, if performed carefully and without discrimination, because the people who like the Spellplague would get their original timeline unaltered and still developed as before (plus sourcebooks for the past, if they wish, since the two timelines would be equal up to the ''fork'', and would differ for how the events are developed in novels during 5e), while the ones who don't would get another one, which allows the development of the stories that they enjoy and that were sadly and brutally interrupted, or ended before their time, without canon that establishes when and how they're going to end, which really sucks.

As I've already said in this thread, I don't think that the game material is the main cause of the issue. They may tell me that ''Realms are modular, you can use any organization/deity/NPC in your game as you see fit, and here are examples of how to do it'', but I already know it (actually many, many people know it) and don't need someone to tell me that, and If I was running a campaign, I'd surely do so. Modularity and material for all eras is good, but they won't cut it alone for the ones who are interested in the Realms as a setting and disliked the changes happened in the late 1300s and 1400s. As I see it, WotC have 2 choices if they want to bring back such fans: either they fix the 1400s Realms (this seems to be  the best course of action at this point), or provide and support a different version of the setting.