They already did that. The Cataclysm launch event. If you weren't high enuf level, you died. You had to leave the city.

Events like that draw heavy criticism, so having one that's PERMANENT isn't likely to happen. Even if lower leveled characters were immune, I could see it getting old, fast, when you saw an event like that happening all the time.

Well heres where the phases zone comes in, levels only x-x(ex.30-35) could be called at a time, if you dont have the quest you cant use the portal and are not able to see or do the event. im not saying its a gonna be a real big and important thing im just think somthing that happens to take the monotony out of a grind, make them battle group wide evens so you always have the players, alow loot and xp rewards, they could also tailor this to be a way to help get geared for heroics giving 333

Actually what fallen asked for was a level-scaled event, important detail there. Cataclysm event was not level specific.

I do agree, though, that the WoW community/culture would not welcome "randomized mass world PVE" of a RIFTish magnitude. When my RIFT guild (which is many of the same people as my WoW guild) gets annoyed with having our quest hubs over-run, or "zones falling (and thus becoming useless to the applicable level) to apathy", we play WoW. When WoW's staticness is boring, we play RIFT.

WoW is big on access control, they'd have to be very careful in going the RIFT event way, and I don't think they'd do it unless they could do it right, and given that WoW's development is going in a "log in for a couple nights a week to keep up" direction, I think they'd want to minimize variables (such a "randomized mass world PVE") so people could effectively plan those couple nights a week.

Leveling in RIFT isn't a "plannable" event. It's a hope that can be dashed by a random event and an understandably apathetic player population. If there's no unity (or higher level assistance), it's alt (or WoW) time. WoW would never go for it.

The Cataclysm event was level-specific. Low levels could do all the lead-up quests, but when the elements attacked, only high levels could fight against them.

The rifts in RIFT was the single-most criticized "content" I have read about. They feel "exciting" at first, then quickly devolve into an annoyance. Even if they were to phase the event from everyone except end-level characters, they would quickly tire of having their cities overrun, and even if the events were entirely optional, they wouldn't be in very long before most people had done them, then they wouldn't bother with them again.

It would be alot of work, and would be an obvious feature rip from another game, for something that would end up forgotten and only explored if they were to add achievements to it.

Drak, do you play RIFT?

If you did, you'd know that "scaled to level" means "partaking", not "GTFO if you're wrong level". Yes, there was "consideration" for lower levels at the city-invasion level in the pre-cataclysm invasion, but if the event was scaled "like rift", there'd be versions somewhere of the exact same content for other level brackets. So, no, the cataclysm city invasions were not scaled to level. Having an inclusive lead-up doesn't count, in the context fallem is referring to.

As for the criticism of RIFT's rifts, I can, some days, agree with it as you've quoted it, which is why we flip flop in our little circle. I've counseled every RIFT player complaining about invasions to vote with their activity and their wallet, and play/subscribe to the vision they agree with, because RIFT is asking "does this work", and for some, it does. If it's enough, the game will be fine, and my crew can keep our dual-directional palette-refreshers. :)

WoW is great for planned events, quite on purpose. RIFT is great for "background occupation", they synergize nicely together, and fill each other's gaps, IMO.

@omedon666

There were plenty of scaled rifts that shot out scaled (to the zone they were in) elementals in almost every zone during the the invasion event. Also those ones were the ones you had to kill to get the feat of strength for the event, not the city invasions. Oh and low levels escaping from the cities was optional too, and could still help with the non combat objectives.

No, I don't play RIFT.

I knew what you meant by scaling, but there is still some scaling in the Cataclysm launch event. As noted above, the rifts that spawned in cities weren't the only ones.

It would still be copying a main feature from another game, and it would be something that wouldn't add much in my opinion. If the main draw of another game failed there, why would it be any different in this one?