The Japanese test server is currently v1.9.6. In older versions you had to do quests in order to control multiple characters. Some of the quests, NPCs etc have changed since the older versions as well.

v2.0 is being implemented soon (today actually I think). v2.0 is mostly new areas, new armors, veteran system (not sure what this is, it's for lv100+ chars) and colony wars (faction vs faction).

The test server will be wiped after testing (no date given yet).

The reason I'm playing on the test server is because the rates are 10x faster so I can access higher level content faster. I'm going to play at normal rates on the English server, so I don't see the point of playing on the normal Japanese servers.

There's no job change. Basic idea of the game is to level your team, and do quests to earn NPC characters, that you can add to the team, or to unlock areas / earn rewards. Aside from that there are raid bosses and missions where you will need to team up with other players.

If you have trouble patching the test server (my patching refused to dl past 1024 kb initially) close the patcher, delete the thumbs.db file inside Granado Espada > Release > User > Skins folder, and start the patcher again. It's a hidden file so you'll need to change your file display options to see it.

If you just downloaded the test server client, yes, the first round of patching is really big, just let it run for a while. It took me almost 2 hours to just dl the upgrade to v2.0 yesterday.