GW2 so far

I've been playing GW2 since it launched, but I don't get a huge amount of time to play. Consequently, I'm not at max level yet (80) whereas at least a couple of my guildies got there in a week... For me, this created a rather large gap, and I'm not just talking about level differences..

Whilst I enjoy such games and have happily played many hours alone, I do love the social aspect, but only if I'm having fun and feel some togetherness with my fellow players. Sadly, it has been quite some time since I had a really good laugh in an online game, and I find myself feeling very lonely: much more so in GW2 than in GW1.. maybe because there's a lot of new stuff to learn, but also, as silly as this sounds, because I don't have a team of heroes with me.. Hmm.. maybe I should book an appointment with a psychiatrist... :o

Anyway, here are a few things that I don't like about GW2:

- Nearest 'enemy':
You can bind a key to 'nearest enemy', which is great. I've set it to 'C' like it was in GW1. However, and this is a big HOWEVER for me, it will target non-aggressive creatures too... I find this highly annoying, especially since my first character is a Sylvari Ranger who I wish to be passive: she will only fight with those that pick a fight with her.. Might seem odd to some, but it is my choice, and I think that binding a key to 'nearest enemy' should only target 'red' enemies, and if you wish to kill 'yellow' creatures, you have to deliberately attack them. So many times I have accidentally killed a poor animal that I would rather not have killed. I come from a roleplaying background, which may help explain it a little to those who just don't get this attitude ;)

- Jumping puzzles/some vistas:
 I'm glad they added jumping to GW2, however I find some of these extremely challenging, and personally I find it no fun to get near to the end only to fall because I just didn't jump quite right, and have to start again. The camera angles whilst jumping and trying to get the positioning right are awful: sometimes there are tree leaves or something in the way and I end up having to just do a 'leap of faith'. Personally, I think 'puzzles' is stretching it a bit: it's more a case of skillful jumping. I'd prefer having to find secret entrances and work out how they open by following clues, using commands and the like.. but then wiki would kinda spoil the challenge of that for many. I've got better at them, so just a case of keep trying I guess :)

- Invisible status:
This is a joke. There is an 'invisible' statues option, which basically is completely pointless, unless I suppose all your friends are not in the same guild as you.. Why? Well because your location is shown in the guild roster, and if you move location it updates... What's the point........?

- Longbow range:
It would be great fun to rain arrows on some mobs down on the ground below when you're up high, but it never works for me.. Why not? It's a longbow, it should work; and even if it weren't a longbow.. anything I chucked off the cliff should land on the ground down below, no..? Meh!

- Dungeons:
Probably just personal taste here (again?), or I'm just getting too old to be playing online games, but I've been in a couple of dungeon instances and did not enjoy them one bit.. There's far too much going on for my liking, it's cramped and squished and everyone's on top of each other.. add to that the sounds and sights of spells and weapons and traps and goodness knows what, and it's just a big mess on the screen... I so much prefer the dungeons of GW (YEs, maybe I will! :P )

- Emotes:
One that just occurred to me: I would have expected more emotes, not less! I find this very disappointing. Yes, they've added '/me' which effectively means that you can emote whatever you want now, but your character doesn't do any action to go with this, so there are less 'action' emotes. Just in case you didn't know, you could type '/me coughs and spluttes' and the output will be ' coughs and splutters'. I do like this, but disappointed in lack of others. 

- Map chat: 
The first couple of days were wonderful. Just people chattering, helping each other, being nice.. lovely. Now, 90% of what I seem to see is 'LFG AC STORY' or similar.. ugh.. I wish they'd made a channel for that 'LFG' stuff... I wish there was just a 'chatter' channel....... :( 

- Heroes: 
There aren't any... :( 

Well, that seems like a lot of moaning. Don't get me wrong, I like lots about it: 
I adore the trading system: I hated the one in GW so much: only used it if I really needed to. 
I love the crafting, although I feel like I'm forever playing catchup with it. 
I like that you can see what there is to complete on each map and wander round doing it all. 
It's great that you can send/receive messages to other players: I missed that in GW 
Being able to go inside buildings and jump on things and swim underwater is fab. 

It's a great game, and still free to play, once you've bought it. Sure, there is stuff you can spend real life money on if you want, but you really don't need to. If you're someone who feels that they have to buy stuff, feels forced into it, I don't envy you: it's not a good place to be. Remember, it's a game. Do what you want to do, and enjoy it. 

 If you're out there Huggie, I miss you. 
 xxx

Goals

I'm well over half way through the Winds of Change set of quests, which is a relief. What a grind! lol
I'm also over half way through my Vanquishes, which is also a relief, but only because it means that those titles are over half-way completed. After whining about VQing just being Anet's way of getting us to play the game all over again, I actually discovered that I quite enjoy it. It's kind of like Cartographing for me, in that you have a goal of clearing something and it has a similar feeling to when you've finished cleaning something, organizing something, shredding, or other 'cleansing'......... :D

I've still got to get my first Tormented weapon, which is possibly something that I should be a little ashamed of... But, it's not because I can't afford it.. it's because I'm TOO TIGHT!! lol. I expect I'll cave when the time is right for me...

Guild Wars 2

Well, it's been a while, but my faithful little blog is still here. I still play GW, but not avidly. I go through phases with it: there'll be something I want to achieve, like a title or mastering an area, like DoA, or obtaining an item - a Tormented weapon would be good! and I'll play more. When the goal is achieved, I tend to ease off and turn my attention to other things for a while.

Of course GW2 is getting ready, and many people have returned to GW to try and get their Hall of Monuments a little 'plumper'. It's funny seeing how some people come back and almost seem to expect the fatted calf. I've seen people moaning about how you can't do this or that in GW (e.g. jump) when you can in some other cool game that they don't want to play anymore.. If it's such a drag, why are they playing? They feel the need to 'grind' out their titles to fill their HoM. Oh well, such is the way of the world I suppose. We're such a label-driven society. Me? I still only do what I want to do generally. Although I confess to 'grinding' my way through the WoC quest chain in both NM and HM (Normal and Hard modes). I do find this a huge drag, but feel that I need to do it, kind of like finishing a book. It's a sort of gap-bridging that Anet have done between GW and GW2. I think it's basically content to keep bored players occupied. I don't remember being bored in GW. Am I unadventurous, or too easily-pleased? I prefer to believe that it's because I have chosen to play when I want to, and to do what I want to. There are still some titles that I refuse to go for, since I simply don't see the point: why would a warrior want Backfire? I may feel forced to backtrack on that, but I'll do my best to find suitable alternatives which fit in with my game-playing ethos, which is basically 'It's a game. Play for fun'. :)

I'm quite exited by the prospect of going indoors in GW2, not to mention the aforementioned jumping, and stuff :D I bought the GW2 pre-purchase (not to be confused with pre-order, which simply reserves a copy of the game upon release, and doesn't allow you to play in the Betas before then) a bit late, so missed the boat for last month's Beta weekend, but I'm looking forward to the next one, hopefully this month (May 2012). There's a stress test this Monday too (14th May). I don't think my PC is up to it, but if I can just play about with character creation that'll make me happy. Hmm... maybe I am just easily pleased.. ^..^ It should also give me an idea of just how much upgrading my PC needs. I put it together about two and-a-half years ago, and still haven't installed a graphics card! Hehe. It's fine for my current needs, but we'll see what GW2 does to it..

Wow. Been quite a while!

I still play, though haven't since 'Wintersday' as there was this great, repeatable quest called Snowball Dominance, which gave great rewards, including Vanguard Reputation points, gifts and Frosty tonics, for a couple of minutes 'work'. A lot of people (including moi) used it to max out Ebon Vanguard and Party titles.
After doing it a lot over 'Wintersday' though, it kinda 'burned me out': I've never been keen on repetitive things, so it brought on a 'GW break' for me.

I must say, the GW2 HoM calculator has made even me do some things I probably never would have otherwise. My aims before were quite simple: a max. title per character, and to get each character looking the way I wanted. A few other things which I can't think of now, but.. easy enough things. Other than that I just wanted to play when and how I felt like it. No 'grind' for me.
Now though, there's something tempting about that HoM and it kinda 'begs' to be filled up.. I'm doing very 'averagely' on one account, and 'not bad' on the other.. No I don't want to fill both: one at at least 40, and the other at 30 will do me. I have no idea what benefit points in both will/won't/might have - none I imagine; but I love all my characters and don't want to neglect them. Points aren't everything ;)

Must change top page picture: most of them have different armour now.

GW:EN

Guild Wars: Eye of the North, or 'GW:EN' for short is here. I bought the pre-order in the online store a few weeks back, and played a little of the pre-order last weekend, but since I was working, I didn't really get to play much, by which time most of my guildies had raced on ahead. Back to solitary life then Lol!

Partly for this reason, but also because of an increased interest in that oddity they call 'real life' (hehe) I just haven't got into it.. I wandered around my 'Hall of Monuments' which still baffles me... and wasn't overly impressed.. you can only have images of your heroes, for example, if you've upgraded their armour.. Similarly, you can't display your own image/armour unless you bought the FULL set of elite armour.. me being a 'mix-n-match' kinda gal... no image for me.. which is very annoying, because my ele. for instance, looks gorgeous - imho of course ;) She's just got the elite Primeval upper and boots and wears a cute little skirt in place of the pants.. dyed black to match her hair.. she looks niiice.. but I can't display that in MY 'Hall of Monuments'...

Speaking of HoM... it's 'per character'... I'm still baffled as to how I will link all this and both my accounts to my ONE (not doing the 'double' thing all over again!) GW2 account... that's if I bother with it.. (which I probably will).

Anyway, Gwen itself is nice, from what I have seen so far. It's pretty much more of the same, but since Anet has always excelled in the art department as far as I'm concerned, you can't get too much of that. NPCs also talk to you now, which is well cool; though I suspect it might become rather annoying after a while. I can just see calls of 'please make it so that we can turn this thing off' in the not-too-distant future.. :p

We get new heroes too. Nice. I've only picked up a couple so far, but one is an 'Asura' Elementalist: Asura are cute little creatures with big sticky-out ears, and.. the other is a Dwarf Monk. I might have just picked up a 'Norn' Warrior too.. played a bit the other night whilst a bit tipsy.. can't remember whether I actually 'gained' her or not.. :o.

If you've actually got this far and am curious as to what the heck I'm rambling on about, check out Guild Wars Wiki here for more information :)

Farmer

I did get the GW:EN pre-order from the online store. A couple of weeks-ish till we can test it out..

I still haven't played much recently, but I've 'dipped in' a bit, here and there, and just done a spot of farming mainly: a couple of 'Margonite' runs with my Ranger and some 'Solo Boss Hunting' with my 'newer' Assassin who's just got a couple of missions left to finish Elona/Nightfall. The plan is to then get her through Cantha/Factions then delete my 'old' 'sin.. but with GW:EN coming up, it may not happen..

A friend showed me the Undead farming outside Bergen Hot Springs after I was there with my ele. and noticed the droves of monks there! I tried it, and as usual it took me a couple of goes to get it right, and I had to leave him and be alone before I did, and then I got the hang of it, then I didn't want to do it anymore! Lol!

Speaking of my Ele., I did spend a bit of time map-scraping with her. last week. She's up to 94.5% now.

GW:EN

GW has been working for me for a while. Can't remember what I did.. it just seems to be hit and miss. I think I actually deleted it properly then reinstalled. It still plays me up but it's ok. GW:EN has been announced for the end of August. I'll order the pre-order from the online store soon I think.

I got 'Kind of a Big Deal' on my Ranger, and I've kinda lost interest since then. Funny.. goals keep you going.. ;)
I did a bit of work on my ele. finishing Elona with her, getting her some nice new armour from the final area then getting about 2.5% more on her Tyrian explorer title. She's crept up to about 92.5%.. tough going.

I'm worried about this Monuments thing that will be in Guild Wars 2.. it seems we can take some of our titles and stuff with us, but I'm concerned that I won't be able to take stuff from both accounts.. I'll have to pick one - 'cause there's no way I'm going to have 2 accounts in GW2! lol.

Repairing Data Archive

Waiting for GW to install.. I finally did it!
I've been plagued with 'Repairing Data Archive' on an alarmingly regular basis for months now, and will get kicked out of the game at times with a 'helpful' window popping up telling me that 'A serious problem has occurred...blah..'.
Anyway, tonight I couldn't even get the game to start! It 'repaired' it's data archive, yet again, then closed. Then it just kept ignoring me! Darn cheek! Pfft!
I used the '-contig' command which defragged my Gw.dat file, but that didn't help. They even recognise it on the official GW site here
now, which is a step in the right direction..
I've 'given in' though finally. Tried the 'reinstall GW to same directory' (or similar) option in add/remove programs, but that did nothing, so yep.. I UNINSTALLED Guild Wars! *breathes heavily*. I realised too late that my templates have gone in the bin too lol, but I'd put my screenies somewhere else, and have a copy of my old Gw.dat file 'just in case' - there are a lot of 'just in cases' in my life :P

Oh my..... well it just finished and I just got the 'A serious error has occurred that prevents the program from continuing to run; however... blah..blah...' Grrr!

Meh, back to the drawing board!

*huffs*

Hero 'elite' armour

I'm totally skint now, having scraped enough together to get my monk some nice Elite Sunspear armour. It looks nice :)
I thought I'd have a go at upgrading some hero armour, but Dajkah Inlet was a pain. I'm not the quickest of workers, so I had trouble with the timer. I killed the Guild Lord three or four times and didn't get the necessary 'Stolen Sunspear Armor' that is needed to upgrade one hero's armour. I don't fancy doing that over and over to see if I can get one... I'll have a go if any guildies fancy it some time I think. For now, I'll try and get my monkie further through Nightfall.

I just did Venta Cemetary. Man, that took me ages! I was too busy trying to keep everyone alive to notice that half my Evacuees had disappared. I got to the NPC at the end to find that she didn't want to talk to me; so I had to go back and find my evacuees... They'd got stuck on one of the Guard Posts! lol!! I 'unhooked' them and went back and luckily, I got the Masters. I'm glad that happened, because I let the other Sunspear Evacuees die, so good job some kept themselves safe! Hehe!

Hard Mode

Well an update on 19th April made sure all my Guildies were busy with the new 'Hard Mode'. Whilst this offers new challenges, not to mention titles (Vanquisher), I see it as a way to get you to play the game all over again.. Why would I want to do that? lol

There's always stuff to do in GW and it's not hard setting yourself various goals of different kinds. Someone's reply on a post I made on another game's forum springs to mind. I had basically said that I thought it was time for me to pop back to GW and they went on about how the 'main problem' with GW is it's level cap.. heck, that's one of it's major bonuses for me! lol. As previously stated, I hate 'grind', so I can get to level 20 then get on with other stuff: capturing some skills, trying out a new build, dabbling in pvp, or numerous other things, such as exploring - just about my favourite thing to do :)

I was just pondering on creating another blog to empty my jumbled head into, but I need to think more about just how to go about it, how to order the jumble so I don't make others' heads as messy as mine.. I might just create a private one which I can use like a diary. I can put my more precious bookmarks in it, because, knowing me we'll have a power cut/surge one day whilst the external HD is plugged in and I'll lose my backups at the same time as my 'live' stuff.. Lol! Then there's the absolutely outstanding free programs I've used to keep all the 'crapware' off my machine.. I'd like to donate to them someday, but an homage would make me feel better for a while.. Loads of people have done this already though I imagine..

I'll stop rambling for now..

GW is appealing again

Well, as I said, Thang's become a bit.. well.. it's time for another break from it. We downloaded 'Rappelz' and my bf managed to get into it and create a character. It kinda reminds me of GW: nice scenery and stuff. It looks better than 'Thang' but since my (rather ancient now) PC just locks up when I try to get it started, I haven't tried it for myself yet..

I popped into GW the other night and there have been a few changes. The ones that struck me were that you can now have your minipet with you in towns. I LOVE that! They've also increased the storage size, which is nice, though I've managed to fill it up already! lol! No surprise! :o

A few people were actually pleased to see me and it seemed I'd been missed! Gobsmacked! When I posted to say I'd be 'on a break' for a while, only a couple of people replied, so I assumed my absence would hardly be noticed. It was wonderful to be wrong! Hehe!

Well, I've been fiddling about with blog stuff today and now I've had a couple of drinks I feel like playing. Can't get into Rappelz, don't fancy Thang, so.. it has to be GW - it's 'Repairing Data Archive' atm... Grr! I'm used to that though. I can ramble on here whilst it's doing that...

Yay, it's up. See ya *waves*

Back up a bit

Six months or so after Factions came out, Nightfall came out. Again, I had to get two copies. Grr! I wish they'd introduced the extra-character slot thing earlier! Meh. One of my copies is a Collectors' Edition and to be honest I don't really think it's worth the extra money. You get a nice 'mini pet' with it - a Kuunavang, which is like a small flying dragon, pretty cool :) and also a special dance, but this is only for the new races you create on the game I think (haven't played for a while - see below). Since I created each new race (two available) on a separate account I only had one special dance, which was for the new character on the Collectors' Edition account, my Paragon. My Dervish is on my other/second account. I think I prefer the Paragon, but both are great.


My gals

Nightfall brought the excellent 'Heroes'. You unlock Heroes as you work your way through Nightfall. If you complete all the quests and missions you need to complete to get to the end, you should have most of them. There are a couple of missions you can't do along the way, due to having to choose which path to take, therefore you also choose which hero to unlock. You can however go back once you get to the end and get them all, except one which has to be gained by doing something in the new high level area which is raaaaaather difficult, though by now I'm sure many have it licked. I wonder if my Guild do... I must check back on them soon :)
You basically equip your heroes with weapons and skills and they're just like having another person along with you - the conversation is even more intelligent than you'll get from some people! :P You can place flags for them to stay back or go to a certain spot, set them on attack or defensive, and I think you can even capture pets for them, though I haven't got around to this yet..

I suppose I should go back and at least try and get my Dervish through the game. The two new ones should both be finished at least I think.
A new mini-pet may have appeared on my Assassin and Ritualist by now too... you get a free mini-pet after a character's been in existence for a year. My first was a (purple) Kirin, then I got less valuable ones after that. Still, some of the 'white' ones are pretty cute: Scorpion (can't remember what it's called... der..d.. uhm... ahh yes, Devourer), Fungal Wallow, etc..
I tried to load GW up yesterday but due to my inactivity there are lots of updates and I couldn't be bothered waiting for it. I'll do it soon though, using the -image command.

Thanks for reading my rambling waffling gibberish (if you got this far :o).

:)

"We were on a break!"

I stopped playing a good few weeks ago, due to several reasons. Being in a Guild was great, but whereas when I was 'solo' I just decided what I wanted to do and did it, be it finding a certain monster for a drop or a skill, or joining a PuG to complete a mission; I found that being in a guild made me feel like I was always supposed to be joining in, and when it was often the stressful PvP or doing the same old missions yet again it became a drag.

I'm not great at PvP and I found it stressful having to try and succeed all the time and having people getting clearly annoyed with each other when we didn't win. Some would just say they had to go, when you knew that had we been winning they'd have stayed much longer. It wasn't fun. Of course, I'd like to win too, but I'm not gonna sulk when we don't. Also, there'd be ages of waiting whilst everyone got ready because someone always turned up at the last minute and need to know the build and which skills, etc. to bring, blah blah..



Also, it seemed that whatever type of PvP we did, there HAD to be a build. This got on my nerves sometimes, since at times I'd like to just do something spur of the moment, for a laugh and see what happens. Have fun! It's a game after all. If we win, what a crack; something to have a good laugh at: we just jumped in with any old build and won. If we lose, so what. We had a go, had a bit of fun, probably learned something and didn't lose ages talking/arguing about or simply taking orders about how to play. To make matters worse, this spilled over into PvE!! It got to a point where people didn't want to attempt later/harder areas because we didn't have sufficient characters/builds between us to do whatever build someone had decided was the build we must try. I'm not saying this is a bad idea. 'Fail to prepare and you prepare to fail' is a good philosophy to follow, but.. ALL the time..? nah. What about just doing something ad hoc, for the Hell of it!?

I really wanted to get good at PvP, and believe I was improving. A couple of people said I was good, but I don't know whether they were just being nice.. I ended up monking mostly because I wasn't too bad and there always seemed to be a need. The organising of PvP was a nightmare.. I'm sure I'll give it another go sometime. Who knows, maybe I'll be writing again in a year's time saying I love it! Hmmm... LoL!

Been a while

It's been a while since I posted. Amazing how time flies! ^..^

I got Factions and thoroughly enjoyed it. I had to get two copies of course, since when I first started playing, there was no option to buy extra slots, which you can do now.
I made a Ritualist on my main/first account and an Assassin on my second. I hated the look of the assassin to start with and actually started a guy. I thought I'd be cool and create one with a Japanese martial-artsy sounding name, but found that I was only one of many who'd had the same idea. There were loads of male assassins running around so I made a female instead. I actually grew to really like her and she farms boss monsters to get me some good drops, though I'm not the luckiest in that respect hehe.

I never really got into the ritualist, but hopefully one day I'll learn to enjoy her as much as all my others. I felt she wasn't really powerful as a killer and not particularly wonderful at being a healer either, but a couple of guildies (yes I joined a guild finally ^^ ) saw huge potential in the ritualist and used them very well, so maybe I just didn't get the hang of it.
I liked Factions a lot. The only thing that really annoyed me was forever coming up against locked gates that you couldn't get through till you'd achieved a certain task (completed another mission or quest or something) which was infuriating when you'd just spent ages fighting your way there - here's where having a 'runner' build is mighty useful.

I joined a really nice guild and should still be in it, if I haven't been kicked for inactivity! :o

I haven't played for a couple of months or so, because it became a bit of a chore. More about this later (skip the next section if you're not interested ;) ).

With Factions came Alliance Battles. They can be fun. I barely got involved for a while, but they're a quick way to gain 'Faction'. There are two types: the ones where you go in with a team of four, and get put into a bigger team with two other teams of four, so twelve of you go running round in the same party against another big group of twelve. The second type is where you just join the 'mission' and get put in a group of eight I think it is.. (memory like a goldfish). I prefer the smaller ones. No-one sulking if it goes wrong (well someone may shout NOOB or something but they're only kids, bless 'em :P) and not usually as much time sorting out the team.

As ever, anet delivered on the scenery score. The lush, enchanting forests, and the calming wide open vastness of the beautiful Jade Sea, not to mention areas of rolling hills with delicately placed oriental-looking bridges or buildings.. of course you can't just relax and have a picnic, due to the critters wandering around wanting you for dinner! lol

My latest online game

About eight months ago I discovered Guild Wars. It's a Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game (MMORGP). People from all over the world play and ages seem to range from about 10-60! You can play the whole game on your own if you wish, or group with others. There are many quests to complete and monsters and skills to find and the scenery is lovely. There are deserts, frozen forests, jungles, volcanic islands.. Of course, as the name suggests, there are many Guilds. Far too many in my opinion: it's too easy to set up a guild: it's instant and there's no application process. I think there should be some kind of application process and that Arena Net, the company who make the game, should have a database of each and every guild. I joined a guild after a couple of months playing, which wasn't bad going since you're asked to join one regularaly from early on. I greatly enjoyed the guild at the beginning but after some time, grew to dislike the leader and eventually left. I have been guildless ever since. Until about a month ago I was quite happy with this, but it's time I joined one as I'm tiring of PuGs (pick-up groups: teaming up with players you don't know to do missions and such). Many players are fine, but you only need one jerk in the group to spoil it, and then there are people who go AFK (Away From Keyboard) letting you do the mission for them, and those who simply leave, leaving you short of players..
I recently made my own guild: well, two actually, as I have two accounts for my six characters: Elementalist, Monk, Necromancer, Warrior, Ranger and Mesmer. This stops me getting pestered to join a guild, but of course it's only a temporary measure. There are four character slots per account and eight different classes that you can play if you want to. There are only 20 levels so if you're a 'level-freak' this game isn't for you. There's loads to do though, like capturing elite skills for your class. I have them all now, and there isn't a great deal left for me to do, especially since I'm not in a guild. I play mostly with a friend I made in the game, and on occasion I team up with a couple of my ex-guildies :) Overall, it's a great game, with no monthly subscription fee.



A new version of the game is coming out at the end of the month. It's called Factions and if you buy it you can either play it as a stand-alone game or merge it with your GW Prophecies (the first campaign) account. If you play it as stand-alone you get four character slots. If you merge it you get two slots, making six in all on that particular account. Two new classes will be available: Assassin and Ritualist. So if you have both campaigns and only one account you'll have to decide which six of the eight classes you want to play with. Of course you can delete them at any time and make new ones, but I'm not into that ^^



So were are the wars?
Of course, there is a whole chunk of the game that I haven't mentioned: PvP (Player versus Player). This is optional. You can play entirely PvE (Player versus Environment) if you wish, or PvP. For PvP though, you will find the need to level up at least one PvE character, since this way you can 'unlock' skills and items which will then be available to any pvp characters you make on that account. You can unlock skills and items (e.g. Runes) by gaining 'Faction' from PvP, but this would probably take a looong time, especially for a beginner (since you're not always going to win).

You can play 4x4 battles, in which you're in a team with three others, playing another team of four. You can also team up with seven other players and fight another team of eight. You might do really well and get to the 'Hall of Heroes' (HoH) and you might even get to win Favour for your zone (currently, Europe, U.S., Korea).

Then there's GvG (Guild versus Guild). This is where you gather a group of eight players in your guild and battle another guild who has done the same. In this situation, both teams are made up of members who know each other and should know each other's playing styles, and both teams can plan a strategy. It is unlikely that you will get a team in HoH that have these advantages, although you could take guildies there, which would give you a good advantage over any PuGs you 'drew' against.