PVP in Archeage is core to the game; without it, many elements of the game would not function.

The PVP in Archeage is open world pvp, in PVP zones. The high level zones are PVP, the northern(entirely player run) continent is pvp, and the open seas are pvp.There are 2 factions, one from the western continent, one from the eastern continent. If you kill a player of the opposing faction, you get honor points which can be used for various things(I believe there are diminishing returns on the same player so it can't be exploited). So generally, you're rewarded for killing the enemy faction.

If you kill a player from your own faction, a blood splatter appears. Anyone can click this splatter while it remains, and report the crime. When reported, you gain crime points and infamy points. If you reach 50 crime points, upon your next death from another player, you are sent to trial. You can also get crime points from stealing crops from your own faction. Players from your faction then vote on a jury as to whether you are guilty or innocent. Generally to be chosen innocent, you would need to come up with a valid reason for your crimes.

For example, perhaps you were gathering your friends tree farm for him since he couldn't log in, and someone mistook it for a crime and reported the footprints. Maybe someone stole your trade pack, so you had to kill them to take it back. I've also seen silly excuses for crimes, such as "He told me to stab him not my fault", and "I'm stopping untaxed farms by stealing their unprotected crops, he's the criminal not me" and so much more.

If chosen guilty, you go to jail. In jail, you can either serve your time, or attempt to break out in a variety of ways(my favorite being stealing a guard tower key, climbing up it, and taking a confiscated hang glider to fly over the walls). Breaking out is risky as you might be recaptured, but is an option. Generally you want to have friends with a getaway boat ready when you break out so that no other player tries to kill you to turn you back in. Jail sort of felt like a throwback to Old Graal Classic before jail got silenced- people have loads of fun in there, but after a while long sentences do act as a means of not wanting to commit crimes.

If you accumulate 3000 infamy points, you get banished from your faction, and become a pirate on the central pirate island. You pretty much live off of stealing trade packs from other players attempting to sail them across continents, and it can be pretty fun. Only the worst of criminals become pirates.

PVP is also crucial because of trade runs. You earn gold from crafting a trade pack with various materials such as plants you grow and stuff you mine, and delivering it somewhere else. The further you take it, the better of rewards you get. The thing is, other players can attempt to kill you to steal it, and take the profits for themselves. This makes PVP highly important, as you need to be able to defend yourself from theft by either your faction, pirates, or the enemy faction. You may also want to steal from people. This is why people band together for high risk trade runs such as cross continental ones.

So generally, you do not want to kill a member of your own faction, unless you see a reason to do so such as stealing the trade packs on their ship for your own profit.

The northern continent allows players to build castles on it, or attack the castles of others. The north continent is literally empty, except of what players create. These take a massive amount of resources such as stone, lumber, and iron, and will likely be a large group effort. You can design them however you want, placing walls, gates, guard towers, cannons, and other parts however you see fit. Other players can also attack your castle, so you need to defend it. I believe its open for attack only at a certain time each week-so you don't need people on 24/7 to defend it. You can tax players for land on your castle. Because of this, you may see player lead rebellions against large guilds that tax too high. You may also see guilds fall apart due to lack of funding from low taxes. Getting resources to the north as hard, as you need to avoid theft when transporting them, and also avoid the Kraken which is insanely strong.

I think there's arenas of some sort, but I'm not sure.

Archeage isn't nearly as complicated as EVE online, it is a lot less overwhelming. It starts out a lot like a standard MMO like WoW, with quests, but over time introduces you to new features as you level. You get a horse that you raise at level 5, small rowboat at like level 7, a glider at level 12, and a farm at around 15. Leveling is also super fast too, I hit level 15 in about a couple hours and apparently hitting 50 only takes a few days to a few weeks-it isn't a grind. Pretty much everything from crafting to gathering gives EXP, too. You shouldn't feel completely overwhelmed when starting, and it doesn't take too long to learn, but there's so much to do that it doesn't feel stagnant after a while.