Quite a few of us spent time playing the RIFT free trial while EQ2 was down. More importantly, these were probably people that are happy with EQ2 and haven't participated in the Beta or bought the game. I think it is important that we give feedback on what we think of that game, in particular the dynamic events that occur with the rifts and the contested nodes. Undoubtedly, some of the developers have played RIFT and have their opinions about how to make Norrath more dynamic, but our input might help them.
I would like to start by saying that the rift events reminded me of the Void Storm event in EQ2. This is not a surprise considering who the lead developer is on RIFT.
As for what I thought of their dynamic events, I liked them, but there were problems that are evident immediately and others that will cause problems down the road.
Good:
When the invaders show up, they are all over the place and kill all of the other mobs in the area. This disrupts the ability to do quests, but is an important part of the event. The battles in Storm Gorge could use a little more of an open ended flavor with a less focused battle occurring with less focus on winning the battle and more on defeating objectives to help the Cold Dain (or the Rime). This would require going to tokens instead of equipment for rewards.
Bad:
The high frequency of the events cheapens the experience and will likely cause fatigue with players being forced into the conflict constantly.
The faction conflict nodes are plain dumb. Attacking inanimate objects like this has been in SWG for years. There has to be a better way.