Here is a little of my background. I started with WOW (PVE Server), only did one on one PVP twice against a friend and thats it in 3 years lol. Just didnt like one on one PVP. Then I moved to LOFRO (PVE Server), EQ2 (PVE Server), then Vanguard (PVE Server) , then decided to try PVP for the first time with Warhammer.

Warhammer  in my opinion did a really good job in intoducing people to PVP like myself who had never played it before. It was like Wow was to PVE new players. I liked that:

1) I could join a scenario and play a support role (Bright Wizard) without having  to look for a group. I had a blast with the scenarios.

2) They had Public Quest where you could just join right in at any time also making it easy to find a group. The problem was that most of the public quests were deserted making them impossible to complete.

3) Keep battles were fairly common so you could easily just jump into a raid group and enjoy the fun, however, they were very very monotonous after a while and served no real purpose.

The long and short of was that at least in the Scenarios, I LOVED THE PVP and all I kept telling myself was why did I let my lack of one on one PVP keep me away from a game like this. However, once I hit end game I left. Then I went to Age of Conan around this past December on a PVE server. Though I felt it was a solid PVE game, I felt disconnected from the story and left a couple of weeks ago around level 50. Now I am back to Lord of the Rings Online on a PVE server since they finally created a good magic class I could enjoy, the RuneKeeper.

I have had my eye on Aion for a while. The group PVP in Warhammer when I first started playing that game was the most fun I had ever had in an MMO since I never really played PVP before. So this brings me to some questions about Aion.

1) How hard is it to find group to PVP with?

2) Is it one of those games like Darkfall where if you don't have a lot of friends joining the game with you, you are not going to survive?

3) Does the game mechanics make it easy to be inserted into a group similar to the way that Warhammer automatically inserted you into a group in the scenarios?

4) If the game doesn't automatically facilitate finding a group, isn't it always a case that whoever has the largest group will normally win?

My biggest concern is for some of us who may not have a lot of gamer friends or maybe are in a small guild that the game forces you into endless LFG on the main channels hoping someone will respond...and to me that isnt fun whether its PVE or PVP.

Thanks in advance for your info.

I'm pretty much in the same boat. I love large scale PvP fights (starting from DAoC) and thought WAR did something right with making PvP very easily available (groups and raids mainly). So hopefully people could give some details on this.

I thought the scenario's was one of the worst features of WAR actually... constantly doing the same map over and over again, I can buy an FPS for that and not pay a monthly fee for it. It takes too much focus away from the real, open world PvP. 

Plus it's very, very individual. People just dropping in, not saying a thing, stay for just as long as they get enough points... completely kills of the social, group and MMO feel. 

That said and done, it probably won't be that hard to find a PvP group in Aion, as much of the game is played in the Abyss, people will have to group up there anyway. Since it's RvR, you will always have "help" from the players of your race. 

Well the same could be said for anything that has a scenario, battleground, etc. Sure, playing CS or the battlefield series cost no montly fees but that's all you get. What I'm talking about (and maybe the OP) is that in world pvp for example, it's very easy to join an existing pvp raid group, or create one and have people join up. In my experience at least, people are social and friendly in the open raid groups with a lot of communication. This made world pvp, imo a lot more accessible and encouraged more people to participate.

This is based mostly on guesses, predictions based on previous MMOs I've played, and a very little bit of reading specific to Aion.

1) I'm willing to bet that you will not be able to just drop into a group for PvP.  Anything large scale will mostly be using Legions/Alliances as the backbone and small scale skirmishes will be groups of people on each others friends list.

On the other hand, finding groups for PvE content located in places likely to lead to PvP (like the Abyss) should be easy. This will inevitably lead to PvP, friend invites, and possibly Legion invites if the involved members aren't half bad. A few rounds of this and getting groups for PvP with people you at least mostly know by name shouldn't be hard.

2) This is what the linear grindmill is for. PvP doesn't start until after level 20 and its a gradual ease in. Definate pressure to find a group for PvE begins at around 15, so you should be able to find a group you fit in with by around level 30 if things are going smoothly.

3) I've seen nothing to indicate any features that allow you to just hop in and out of groups. I'm not overly fond of them either, I see them as encouraging zerg behaviour.

4) I've seen a number of reports from players on the Korean/Chinese servers observing that a well organized team can take out the opposition even when heavily outnumbered 2:1 or even 3:1. It was implied in those posts that all parties involved were roughly equal in level, although its hard to tell for sure.

I agree with the OP with everything about WAR. I normally abhor PvP and don't like PUG's. But I had a blast in WAR because you could play cooperatively with others without formally grouping.( And my reasons for prefering this are a whole other post). OT--looks like Champions Online will have a very similar type PQ mechanic in open world. Hope they have a strategy to make it work more consistently than in WAR.

From what I know of Aion, there will be PvE objectives in contested PvP zone ( Abyss). So, in theory, you group for the PvE quest which leads to PvP. I imagine tho, since it is not instanced, anyone in the Abyss can join in PvP. Don't expect anyone to have your back though.

Make friends? It's not that hard to be sociable and get connections. I join a lot of games solo and I don't do half bad because I find a group of players I like to play with and stick with them. On C-Aion there were pvp fights and Chinese players would invite me to help. So if there's pvp in your area it's likely you'll be invited to aid in the PvP even if you are foreign.

Well, so far I'm disappointed in what a couple of you have posted, but I guess I'll be patient and wait to the reviews to see how the game will faciliate the subset of people who feel the way I do.