Hey all, I bought prophecies and factions when factions came out and played on and off for 6 months or so. I really enjoy pvp focused games and I really enjoyed how this game was skill based as opposed to gear based. The main problem I had with the pvp was that it was like little arenas with 4 man teams having pointless quick battles. I'm not looking for the most epic battles or anything really, but I'm looking for something a little more....maybe themed battles or larger battles. I'm pretty sure I heard something about larger group battles after I had quit playing but am not sure if I can do those with original GW and Factions. So to recap, are there any large map capture the flag or territory owning battles or anything of that sort and if there is large battles can I join in with GW and Factions?

yea you can do alliance battles with guild wars factions, between the luxons and kurzick. it is 16v16

alright, that sounds pretty fun. are the alliance battles just: team A starts at top of map, team B starts at bottom of map. You run towards each other and kill the enemy? I'm hoping for some different battles.

It's 12v12 and you shouldn't even start fighting the opposing team, you should just run around the map capping the shrines. I'm not entirely sure that I would classify it as PvP as, if played properly, you'll only be fighting NPCs and some occasional player maybe. Apart from Alliance Battles there are 4 8v8, which is as big as it can get in GW really.

• Jade Quarry - You fight over quarries and guard posts. The quarries will spawn "runners" (that walk reaaaaaaaaaaaaaally slow) who will bring back Jade to your base. Once you've got 10 shards of jade you win. The quarries are defended by NPCs and when you kill all NPCs your team will cap the shrine. You will either be bombing, rangering or defending the shrines. Bombing is essentially just killing NPCs, defending is keeping NPCs alive versus players attacking them and rangering is a bit of everything. More PvP than AB, but not that much really.
• Fort Aspenwood - One team is holding a base and the other one is attacking trying to get to a boss and kill him. As defender your main role will be to keep the NPCs alive, by attacking the attackers or healing the NPCs, and as an attacker you'll do the opposite - trying to kill them, by attacking the NPCs or players defending them or healing your side.
• Heroe's Ascent - Organized pre-made teams. The only thing you'll see being ran here is the current meta, unless you got a guild that feels they want to be creative. It's one of the harder arenas and will require much tactics to win. It will show that you're good at the game here. To join PuGs you will however typically be required to have at least rank 3 in the hero title track. There's always some no-rank teams for farming your way to r3 with strange gimmicks, but it will take some time. If you want to play this seriously I suggest you to find a guild to play with.
• Guild Versus Guild - The definitely hardest arena. You must be in a guild to play this. You'll be pitted against a guild at around the same rank as yours which means that you should always be fighting an equal battle. GvG is very much a matter of tactics, knowledge and skill. With flags to run, bases to defend and the ability to split to kill NPCs or deal some damage to the Lord GvG is very much the most skill-requiring arena.

The reason that battles never get larger than 8v8 (disregarding AB as it never really gets 12v12) is because the game is "balanced" after that. Actually the game already suffers from a power creep - i.e. more damage than healing - and if then even bigger arenas would be available the amount of damage would be impossibly big. And when the damage becomes too big the game no longer becomes a challenge, then it's just a matter of mashing out as much damage as possible, and not trying to cleverly get through their defenses. You really just have to get used to 8v8 being the biggest, because going any bigger would sacrifice all the good in GW PvP. I'd suggest you to try GvG and HA with a semi-good and serious guild/team to enjoy the full extent of GW PvP before giving up on it.