New player has some questions

I'll answer your first question, as I don't PvP and I agree with Venus' answer for #3.

People don't necessarily grind together--they do exp instances together, that pretty much involves a lot of mobs and rounding them up and killing them for the exp. That's a daily--you can only do it once (kinda, you have a 15 minute limit; if you go over, you can't do it again). There are a lot of dailies in-game that help you level up--and later on, help your character improve.

I've never heard of people forming parties purely to grind on mobs aside from that instance I mentioned earlier. Then again, it'd probably be something done between guild members instead of randoms.

There are people who grind on normal mobs--but it's generally a solo endeavor, or in party with just one or two others. The less people you party with, the more exp for you.​​

PWI is a game with hundreds story based quests. I found it has many good stories and i like to read them. Ofcourse you have the choice to ignore the stories and only care about the xp you get, grinding mats and make gears.
I suggest you to follow the story in quest "The Coming of Age" or people call it the tideborn chain quests. It tells the story about Goshiki, the tideborn warrior and Lizzy, the woman that will be his lover. It is awesome. It tells about the war, heroisme, ambition, homesickness and love story. Always check your bag when u receive new item from this quest to understand the story more. There also are challenge quests like Wraith Gate - Trophy Mode. Win the challenge with your team and you 'll be rewarded with gold medal that can be used to make awesome gears. And take your team to higher Trophy mode in harder instance like Lunar, etc, if u can make it.
You can choose which way u like to play.

~ 1. Is this a game where you grind mobs to level? I am coming from -another mmo- and just prefer grinding so much more then questing. I am hoping this game is like -the other mmo- where you group up with other players and do grind groups. ~

When you quest you normaly do have to grind serveral mobs to complete it. This is also the same when you farm mats to level your blacksmith, talior and craftsman. Rune crafting and Herbs you don't need to grind as such.

There is a lot of farming of instances, both solo and as a team. Any class is capable of soloing but your top soloing classes are venos, assassins, blademasters and barbs (normaly aps). Some mats need for the lvl 70 and up gear you can get cheaply off players or farmed with guilds.

If the grinding you refer to is just purply mob killign when look up about pwi and Zhening. There are certain areas people still zhen at this being, near Raging tides (island to the left of there), outside 79 (cannot spell isntance name but H. Trench) [before anyone says this is no longer done I saw a guild zhen there a few days ago] and in OHT mentioned by cyderangel. However zhening is more for lvl 60+ but you can hit that very quickly.

~~ 2. How is the PVP? Is it any kind of politics or territory control? Do people just go around ganking or is it more structured to where you dont mess with certain guilds or it will be trouble for your guild? ~~

PWI just after server merge removed all the pvp servers. However when you hit lvl 30 you can go 'white name# this allows other players to kill you and for you to kill any other charater that doesn't have a blue name (this being in non pk status). Peronly I don't see much point in being white name until about lvl 90 or 100.

If you want to keep a head of the game and be the 'best' then yes you would need to cash shop. One of the reason why I still play this is that anything you want on this game the sky is your limit (though it will take longer) you can get the best gear out there. Personly slowly gettign there is better as learn your class though all the highs and lows and don't get 10+ skills thrown at you that you have no idea about.

Theres 2 main pvp events this being nw (nation wars) and tw (territory wars).

NW is a 2 hour event at 8:20pm server time, ending at 10:20pm server time. This is basily about 4 nations, dark. light, frost, and flame whihc are trying to take over land. Each land is one of 3 kinds of battle.
Crystal - There are 5 crystals (this of a dice and that is how they are distibuted on the map) for ever second that the crsyal is your teams colour you gain a point need 99 points to win.
Flag - There are 3 spots west, mid and east where can get a flag appearing at, once you get a flag you have more hp but your speed is dramaticly reduced (normaly barbs, bms (blademasters) and venos do this) and take the flag though enemy territory and into your teams light.
Bridge - basicly there are 3 towers (each tower has 3 modes) all of the enemies towers have to be killed to win.

TW is a guild battle wiht anouther guild over land. This can last anything form 5 mins to 3 hours (if it uses all 3 hours then the defending team wins). The object of this is basicly you have your two guild in the top right and bottom left, and there are 3 routes to each others base (this is not the same as guild bases which is something completly different). You have normaly a barb or other high lvled charater or high geared charater pulling a catta (cattapult) whihc attacks towers. There are many videos of this which might explain better. The land being thought over you can see in game when press m then territories, I am unsu if can see this in the starter area or not though so might need to hit lvl 20 to see that.

~~~ 3. How alive is Perfect World? How often does it get updates and new content? Do people cheat to win? ~~~

Regaurding how alive this is think this is one of the most active ones been on and has the best community in all the games have been in. People oftern if ask for help will, (however they will not give things of value like coins, rides and fly and certain mats away for free,) mostly to do with bosses and instances.

There has just been a new update today which ovenusarmanio mentioned which is the tiptide update however this is more for lvl 100s.

There are also changes in the boutique every week (this being the cash shop)

~~~~ Theses are some extra things didn't ask about but might be good to know. ~~~~

There is a system in game ah (aution house) which allows players to trade coin for gold and gold for coin. Theses prices are set by the players and are influenced by what content has been added and what items are on same or wihtin botique at the moment.

If you are low on coin there is a daily called JoJ (Jolly old Jones) which allows players 21~80 [20 and 81 cannot do this] which will help you with your skills, repair costs and gears. highly recommend saying in the 71~80 range to make the most out of this.

Oh and concering TM Wraith Gate this was removed from game, (TM means Tropy Mode) however lunar TM still exists but is really for high levels.

If there are any questions to this I can try and provide any data if you want. But think covered everythign might want to know.

Also which class planning to play and which server, jsut curious. Personly play veno and barb mostly on the Morai server. Bear in mind also that each class can have differnt builds which effects the gear they wear and weapons use, but if for example you rolled a APS (Attack Per Second) Barb you would either use claw/fist fo the aps and axe (normal weapon) for skills and tiger form. Basicly each build has pros and cons.

- Sorry for any typos