Mystery Portal?

I'm not sure how I missed it before with my other characters, but I just got to Amnoon Oasis (3rd character) and I noticed a portal on the north end. Either I'm completely retarded and don't know how to get to it or Anet has it blocked off for whatever reason. My first thought was that this must be a portal to some PvP arena, but I didn't know how to get to it so now I'm here wondering what is up with that. Anyone know what this is about? Have I been taking too many crazy pills?

It used to lead to an Arena, but Anet closed it off.

There used to be an Arena in each city. Then they were all combined and connected to Lion's Arch with different maps for Competition Arenas, except for the lower level ones and Droknar's Forge which was always Team Arenas.

Now obviously, they've all been removed and put on the Battle Isles, which makes much more sense for people with only Factions competing with everyone.

Ok...thanks. I guess I never really noticed that since I only do PvE.

One question though, I've read that Factions will try to merge PvP and PvE a little bit more and I really don't care for PvP so for someone like me will Factions be less desirable? I read that there are some parts in the PvE part that have to be "unlocked" by playing some PvP. I really like Guild Wars, but I don't really want to be "pushed" to play PvP when I don't care for it so much.

i think the merge makes it fun. you earn your Teams faction points by doing competetive misisons. Its a random group of 8 with a ton of NPC's vs the enemies random group of 8 with a ton of NPC. Theres objectives and its like a regualr PVE battle except theres real ppl as enemies instead of just AI.

Yeah, it's trying to show PvE players that PvP can be fun too, because so many of them are biased otherwise. But I think that combining PvE and PvP somewhat will strengthen the GW community as a whole because you get a little of both and there's not divided up sides between PvE and PvP players as it currently is.

From what I've seen, the battles will contain elements of both PvP and PvE in order to achieve a better whole. It'll be bigger, with objectives, and will also have AI's, but still have the teamwork and competition that PvP'rs love.

I think if you embrace it with an open mind you may find that you like it.