For those of you who were there, were there any playable races beyond the core races? I.E. races one could play with certs they collected? If so, what races could you potentially gain access to? It was something I was curious about.

I have ran most of the well know settings but, I have not ran Greyhawk due to it having no real coverage anywhere, not by WotC or any End content creators. If it is tlaked about it is either how it's a worse forgotten realms or the things that are good about it are moved to other settings like tharisdun and Vecna. One would think that the creator's setting would be something special? It feels like Greyhawk gets no love. What's the deal?

I signed up for Living Greyhawk but hardly played any of their events. One day, out of the blue, Wizards sent me a huge d20 (maybe 30mm) with weird sigils on each face. There was a sheet on how to use the die as an oracle. No other explanation. I still have that die.

Played it a bunch back in 3e days. I’m not 100% sure but I think I remember lizardfolk, surials, and tabaxi being played with certs.

My understanding was they purposely sidelined Greyhawk as a dig specifically at Gary Gygax due to some bad blood.  I also wouldn't call it a worse Forgotten Realms, but then whether it is better or worse is purely a personal opinion thing.  WoTC has definitely strip mined Greyhawk for LOTS of content and inserted it into other settings though.

There was a centaur cert for the Duchy of Urnst IIRC

Quote from Hyborialives >>

My understanding was they purposely sidelined Greyhawk as a dig specifically at Gary Gygax due to some bad blood.  I also wouldn't call it a worse Forgotten Realms, but then whether it is better or worse is purely a personal opinion thing.  WoTC has definitely strip mined Greyhawk for LOTS of content and inserted it into other settings though.

 WotC tried to turn Greyhawk into the "default" setting for 3rd Edition.  I don't think them moving away from it was due to "bad blood" so much as it just never being as popular as the Forgotten Realms and then Eberron.

Living Greyhawk in 3e was amazing.Allowing players from around the world to create content for each other was truly special. But probably to expensive to manage for a company that wants tighter control over the game and brand. 

3e was born from the love of the game by the creator/owners of Magic the Gathering. Making a profit was of less importance since  they bought the IP out of cash flow from selling cards. 

I have always favored the gritty low magic feel of Greyhawk over the Archmage on every corner Forgotten Realms. 

But Forgotten Realms provided a larger variety of fantasy styles prior to 5e only embracing a few cities. The vast number of novels is a big selling point for Forgotten Realms and is popularity. The Dragon Lance novels are incredibly popular, for a time even more than Forgotten Realms. But the campaign setting wasn't as successful, then they tried to use it for a new game that was a total flop, which messed up the setting, as well as reduced the popularity of novels moving forward in time, as they were not longer compatible with D&D mechanics for magic.

Eberron has a strong fanbase as being closer to modern age with guns being built into the system, rather than a weird almost completely ignored add on for the Realms. 

The Dragonlance campaign setting was very successful: it predates Forgotten Realms and was the game's big hit until FR came along.  It lost popularity to FR during the transition to 2nd Edition (the novel line still doing well, though).  It wasn't until TSR tried to introduce the weirdness of the Fourth Age that the setting flopped, and it's lack of support in 3rd Edition was caused by rights issues.