As late as June 2010 (1.3.5-1.3.6) the Producer's Letter implies SCs was meant to be part of the "meat of the game" while PVE and prior tier was removed.Telen wrote:Scs were just meant to be a fun distraction and allow players from within a zone including those doing pve to access pvp from anywhere and contribute to the realm war. The realm war was meant to be the meat of the game. Getting involved and helping your realm. Unfortunately and to the detriment of the game for everyone many guilds started to just not bother about their realm. They had everything they needed as the rewards that required realm cooperation were removed. Scs in their state from live were a cancer that ate away at what was meant to be the real game.
Its important to remember the lessons mythic learned and why they massively scaled back the importance of scenarios. That in alpha were the main rvr part of the realm war. Instead bringing in Keeps and guild claiming for the real group content.
Domination/RC was just so different and I'm not really convinced they made a conscious decision to exclude SCs. For me it seems just as likely (50-50) they just couldn't find a reasonable way to incorporate it in the "new" RvR systems.
Regardless separating ORVR / SC like that for me seems stupid as it puts players in different "boxes" instead of them being on "the same team". I remember being grateful for our 6mans that worked for our common realm goal. (disregarding the don't queue problem)
Gouskos:
That being said, there are some critical components to these changes to achieve those goals, which include, removal of VPs for PVE and Prior Tier, which will be reallocated to Objectives, Scenarios, and Skirmish. While players who have died recently and are respawning in the warcamp will still acquire zone capture rewards, the idle defenders of the mailboxes will not. Players who wish to receive RVR rewards must engage in some level of risk to receive them.