The Academy is PvP?

Alright, I took my first character out of the newbie cties to the Academy as a level 8 Fire elementalist. As I was waiting for the timer to run down, some player next to me commented, "You're gonna get jumped"

Anyway, I had no idea what was happening until the game teleported me to a fighting area teamed with 3-4 henchmen.

To make a long story short, the fight ended with a score of 11 to 0 in my "team's" favor. It all happened too quickly for me to get a good look at names and characters.

So, my question is...were those actually players? If so, they seemed pretty weak. Plus, it seemed unbalanced to have 4-5 on my team and 11 or more on the other.

Honestly.. It all depends. It is basically your first taste of PVP. But, it doesnt matter if you win or loose. You go through the same thing after. As for other players/teams.

I dont think there are more then 4 or 5 players on each team - pets are not included. So if you have 4 rangers with a cat - thats 8 on a team. Im not sure how you calculated more but maybe it was because of the Auto Rezzing?

Anyway - The other team, and Your team is either of real players, or of AI Henchmen (NPCs). It all depends on how many players are entering into the academy at the same time you are.

it is just a transition and sometimes there are people and sometimes only npc characters
you go on win or lose

Yea, it would have been the insta-rezzing. The objective is to kill as many of the other team within 2 minutes. You killed some of them repeatedly. =)

The game balances the teams by number of players, then fills in the rest with hench. If there was one other real person with you then there was at least one real person on the other team. It's 4v4. You also don't have to win to advance.