Well I plan on beating most, if not all, of the campaign before heading into the PvP battles, but my question is, does my character carry over into PvP mode?
Or maybe am I thinking this all wrong (as in, do I get to PvP whenever I feel like) ?
yes, you can pvp whenever you like as admin bane said
i believe you can either enter one of the arenas (in tyria there's ascalon, yak's bend) and in cantha i believe there's shining jea) and of course, you can go on to battle isles and join one of the arena's there... (random, teamed, ha)
other places you can pvp:in tyria i am afraid you can only access your GH and do gvg there
in cantha, you can do AB, jade quarry and fort aspenwood
oh plus, pvp is very very different from pve... try in random arena first to get yourself familiarised with pvp i say....