Some people were worried about the "we can be invaded at any time!" aspect of DS2, so I'd like to ask those people who got in a good chunk of time in Online Mode: how were your invasion experiences?

My Personal Experience: I played through the Forest of Giants for nearly a half-dozen hours and didn't get invaded once. I saw two summon signs & plenty of bloodstains, though.

Mechanics for Dealing with Invasions:

• The Blue Covenant (summon allies to fight invaders), aka the Covenant of the Meek, seems to be available once you leave the tutorial. (I don't know for sure; I didn't join it.)
• The frequency of invasions & summons seems to be related to your state of Hollowing. While being Hollowed won't prevent invasions, it may greatly decrease their frequency. (Or maybe it increases it; I'm getting conflicting info on this.)
• There are items that mess with invaders. For example, the Seed of a Tree of Giants (one of the starting gifts available) makes enemies attack the invader. (It looks like a consumable, so I assume you'll find more.)
• The game keeps track of your Total Souls Used and uses it to match up invasions. You can see this on your Player Stat window.
• Burning an Effigy at a bonfire will block any invasions of that area (for a limited time?). Seems a tad costly to me, but useful if you're desperate.

So far, as somebody who's lukewarm about the constant threat of invasions, it doesn't seem to be utterly frustrating like we feared. I'll give it a few more days to say for sure.

I've finished the forest of giants and I too have not been invaded once. I was playing during prime time, getting a TON of ratings on my messages, so there were certainly people playing. I did join the Way of the Blue, so it's possible that has something to do with it. The way the guy who gives it to you talks, it sounds like Blue Sentinels (which I'm assuming is a separate covenant) will come and assist you if you're invaded. I also got a Blue Seal, which is a ring that is for people in the Way of the Blue, but no further description was present on the item. I saw in a loading screen that there are Cracked Blue Eye Orbs which allow Blue Sentinels to assist other players in co-op, but I don't know what the difference is from your classic White Sign Soapstone. It's possible that to be a Blue Sentinel you don't have to be in a separate covenant, so Way of the Blue may just be a way to connect players who want help and want to help defend against invaders. It should be noted I had died once and not restored my humanity so I was hollowed the entire time, but not fully hollowed at 50% health. The way the game talks about becoming fully hollowed makes me think there is some distinction between dying once or twice and losing a bit of health vs. becoming fully hollowed at 50%.

@quid_pro_bono:

I've also gone through The Forest of the Giants without being invaded. My guess is the vast majority of players are still at a point where the items necessary for invading aren't available to them yet.

I'm pretty sure that just no one has been wanting to do a lot of invading yet, most people are probably still playing through so I'd give it a few days lol, also the changes they made are already gonna make it less constant so I don't think its gonna be as crazy as it was in Dark Souls or maybe that first covenent you find, blue something, really really drops the chances.

I'd think this is the case. I used the 2 cracked red eye orbs I found to successfully invade 2 dudes in the forest, but I first guided them to the bonfire before killing them. I was invaded once and swiftly dealt with that invader. That's the only invasion action I've had in 11 hours, but it seems that the Company of Champions limits who I can interact with.

I haven't seen a single invation (or been called in to help during one when wearing covenant items), and I'm about 17-18 hours in. As an awesome correlary to that, however, every single time I've laid down a summon sign, I've been summoned in to help within 10 seconds at the maximum. Having the connections run through dedicated servers has improved the connection stability exponentially too.

I assume the lack of invasions thus far is most likely due to the covenants on offer in the early stage of the game. I haven't found anything yet resembling the Darkwraith's from DS1, and cracked red eye orbs don't exactly seem plentiful.