MVP Monstrous once again has posted an excellent idea (along with visuals) that many have been thinking about.
http://us.battle.net/d3/en/forum/topic/10788148921 + http://www.diablofans.com/topic/107156-nephalem-trials-adding-competition-to-diablo/
Following was my response: http://us.battle.net/d3/en/forum/topic/10788148921#14
Would +10 if I could. One thing I like about PoE race events is they are just pure fun. You can compete with others to be at the top and/or you can compete against yourself to continually improve your leveling time while not dying in the process (except for endless ledge/descent style races where points can still earned) which results in reward points for that season.
The main downside though is that since all of these events are scheduled races, it’s impossible to take part in them if the days and times they are occurring don’t fit your schedule. Another one is you don’t use your own characters as its mainly about leveling as fast as possible.
For D3, it’s one of the reasons they shelved Team Deathmatch – since it didn’t use your own characters; and that is one thing that I was looking forwards to with Trials when they first mentioned it; stuff to do outside of just PvM’ing where you put your actual characters through challenges. Timed events like the Crumbling Vault are fun but it’s random spawn is sadly too far and few between. Me and a friend did it once (his first time since he had never gotten it before) around level 20ish on hardcore and that was awesome trying not to die. Did it a couple of times in Inferno and it’s exhilaratingly addicting.
Of course, as Lylirra mentioned in this post http://us.battle.net/d3/en/forum/topic/10491039663#7, while the gameplay systems felt great, the actual long term tracking system which made Trials feel meaningful, wasn’t up to par. When she mentioned the technology and time to implement it, I believe their design iteration encompasses a lot of what was mentioned in this posting and maybe even more. Likewise, I hope that the time interval doesn’t turn into another PvP type of situation where the design goal posts keep shifting because of the in-game dynamics which cause certain initial objectives, to change/become obsoleted.
