Play in alpha and a lot of stuff to do but you really need to be in a big and strong community.
If not you cant really achieve most of the end game and the currency in game so far is pretty hard to earn $$ if you are F2P due to the labour point

Labour points = Very important for crafting,digging,mining shit,identifying item and even opening pouch.
Basically as of now quite a big gap between patron user and F2P.I thought they will be like rift as F2P player you have access to almost everything.
Patron = Labour point regen online and offline at quite a high rate.
F2P = Extremely low rate and no regen during offline
FYI,you might think the 4 days early bird access is nothing but you are dead wrong.People who bought the pack and got the access will be able to book their small/big farm earlier rendering you F2P player no lands to farm.
Small/Big farm slot is really limited,first come first server basis.All these farm is important for your crafting and trade runs where you earn $$ and GildeStar(currency) for buying blueprints/recipe of building/ships and etc.