The game is geared towards PvP. There are PvE only zones, which are mostly the starting zones. Leveling players are eventually pushed into PvP zones, which can be annoying since it's level capped players ganking lower level players. All the zones have a peace timer once in a while which allows questing players a chance to finish their quests in that zone. It's a pretty open PvP system, where you can even kill your own faction. There's also the open seas, where it's PvP all the time. The incentive to get on the water is for lucrative intercontinental trading.

There is a lot of cheating going on right now though. I really don't understand the logic behind deciding to run an old build of the game that has a lot of known exploits. It must be laziness. There is a new continent in one of the patches, and they probably don't want the large super organized guilds taking it over too early.