The Old Empires are anachronistic, stereotypical and don't even make sense. Ancient Egypt and Babylon is on the same continent as Waterdeep and Neverwinter? They have as much consistency as the Worlds Pavilion at Epcot.
Please, replace them with something interesting.
Ok...
1. What are the backgrounds?
2. Can artificers or artillerist use firearms?
3. What changed with alchemist?
4. Do shifters pick one type of form or can they pick a different one each time?
5. How does the cartographer look?
Part of the problem is that D&D (up to 4e) had seven races it used as core. (Half-orc disappeared for one edition in the middle, even further diminishing it). You have to go to 4e to get two new races in the PHB, and there is a highly resistant strain of DMs who cannot accept anything but the...
I think WotC should have stuck to its guns with Tymanther. I cannot imagine there was a call for an Ancient Fertile Crescent inspired area of Faerun, especially one that barely bothers to file off the real world names. Between that and destroying Many Arrows just to justify the traditional orc...
Part of that issue is that D&D is crap at onboarding new players in the Lore of D&D. D&D has no fixed world to explain the world with. You read the PHB about elves and you an very basic idea of what an elf is, but not a lot on how they fit into the world. Even 3e (which gave us info on religion...