Noob questions about endgame and itemization

I'm very new to Guild Wars, with heavy experience in both City of Heroes & WoW. The multiclassing seems very similar to Heroes' powerset combinations, and collecting gear and materials for crafting are a big draw for me. Some points are still a bit fuzzy though.

How different(stats and graphics) are weapons and armor in the endgame content, and how difficult are they to obtain? Are we talking raid-for-8-months challenge, or something obtainable by any player eventually, depending on your time spent? Also, does high-end gear really make that much of a difference in your build and attack/defense?

How useful are pet classes in PvE/PvP? I downloaded some competitive videos and didn't see any minions running around.

Are most quests repeatable? I really enjoyed running the 5-man instances in WoW and Heroes' Task Forces multiple times for casual cooperative play.

How exactly does the auction work? You can buy and sell gear on this website, and the Auction area here connects you ingame? And this is just with ingame currency?

Finally, how open & challenging is the PVP? Is it typical to get monkey-stomped by experienced players with better gear, or does the game balance well and make it viable for a noob like me to stand a chance against seasoned vets? (WoW bites with gear making such a difference you can get steamrolled by people with sub-par skill and ridiculous stats)

btw, the forum FAQ and links were very helpful overall

Wow lots of questions um

1. The armour graphics are the same throughout the game, each class has a few sets of armour that provide different benefiets, except for 2 sets of expensive armour that cost alot more (15k) but provide the same bonus as the 1.5k armour called droks. The 15k sets are just for looks.

2.High end-gear(1.5 droks) is the best armour and you will likly end up with it and i think its nessersary otherwise you will die alot quicker.

3. dunno about pets and minions i don't/can't use them.

4. quests are not repeatable but missions are.

5. there is currently no auction abilites other then standing in a district and saying selling blah for hours on end till you get lucky

6. currency is gold and platinum 1000g=1plat most ppl just use 1k to represent plat

7.depends most new people will probably find pvp challalengeing till they find ways to defeat certain builds. as no build in GW is superior and can be easily defeted by another. so you'll have to find wot works best for you.

8. everyone ends up with the same droks gear because it's not to hard to obtain but weapons are and they make a huge diffence so that might cause a bit of trouble at first.

phew

feel free to corret me if im wrong can't remember to much off the top of my head :P

[EDIT] - minor correction

Thanks, that was informative. Now I just need some info on pets and the Auction function on this site.

What exactly is the difference between missions and quests?

only 1 mistake 1000g =1K

After completing a mission, it usally takes you ahead in the game. Missions are more time consuming, and alot more fun.

Quests are like "mini-missions", these are done for experience, gold, items, etc. And usally not as time consuming.

So: GW is a game which is kinda different from every other MMORPG. You can really play it in 2 ways: casual player, more oriented towards PvE and basic PvP. You can easily obtain the best armor and items stats-wise in a week more or less. Level cap is 20 so you can reach it in a few days. And stats make a huge difference between starter gear and end-game gear. Good thing is you don't have to sweat much to get them. There are collectors who give you perfect-stats items for really cheap, and some monsters drop 'green' items quite frequently which have perfect stats as well.
Pet classes: basically 2. Ranger: you have an animal with you (pet) which helps dealing damage. Necro: you can raise an army of minions. They're both useful in PvE and PvP, but in the latter one only for specific builds and they're not played by top rank guilds, that's why you might not have seen them. They're generally always good in PvE.
Some quests are repeatable, especially the ones where you get the best loot (Sorrow Furnace, Underworld, Fissure) but generally you can play every map all the times you want and face the monster bosses that drop the 'green' perfect items. You just farm without needing a quest.
No auction system ingame. That's why there's a huge (and the best thanks to the wonderful mods ) section on Guru about trading. If you wanna trade ingame you just stay in one of the biggest cities and advertise your items in the local chat (there's a specific channel for trading). Also, for materials, runes, dyes etc. there are NPCs traders which buy/sell stuff at market price. Of course there's a consistent gap in the offer/demand so if you wanna make those extra golds then you better sell to a player.
PvP: there are different kind of pvp, ranging from random arenas where basically you train yourself with random teams. Then when you're ready to step up you can just join organized teams. Of course if you wanna get the best from this part you should join a decent guild. The game is really well balanced, as you can easily have the best equipment, so it's really a matter of skill only. You can also just create a pvp toon already at lev 20 and create him with the best gear. Of course he will restrained to pvp side only, so you won't be able to sell its perfect equipment to other players.
GW is really an awesome game, ranging from casual player to pro-player. You can play whatever suits you better, but after a while of PvE you will wanna face the true challenge of some serious pvp.
There's so much to discover about it that a post is not nearly enough; just buy and get addicted
And yes, Guru is the best fansite. Period.

I support anything that Arya has said.