After playing Vanguard for about a week and only getting my character to level 10 (damned diplomacy!
) it makes me wonder how a test community could thrive in this game. As those of us from EQ2 test know it is very sparse and gear & groups are extremely hard to come by. Add to that the faction & travel restrictions of Vanguard and its going to be a mighty lonely place. I don't see how it would work unless the Vanguard Test Regulars all had at least 1 main character on each continent - in other words they'd have to work, grind & level up 3 different characters in order to be able to test anything.
The exceptions to this rule would be test only teleports in many areas, decent dropped gear available on a special vendor and double or triple exp to compensate. I also think requiring the regulars to all be ijn the same guild would have to be almost mandatory or you'd never see guild halls or other guild type perks on the test server.
I can't wait to see how it all turns out.