Hi @Vialli PvP (the criminal system, jails and BH, the upcoming city sieges) was surely the focus of this Alpha, together with the restructuring of the layout of the world and cities (the Tech Tree, residential areas, etc). Almost all of the dev time was spent there, very little was added on the PvE and player progression side compared to the Fall Alpha.
We would have liked to do more on PvE, but we're a very small team (8 people, of which 3 programmers including myself), so... we can say that all the PvE has been tested already. What hasn't been tested is the interaction between PvE and PvP players, which is happening now for the first time - rather unpleasantly, as you've pointed out.
The structure of the world is surely a big culprit there. Player progression has to go through some specific hotspots, you can't complete your character if you don't... well, actually you could do a lot if there was an active economy with people selling Lore Tablets at marketplaces, but there isn't. So you feel stuck.
We have plans to address the situation which we'll disclose in our upcoming roadmap, but it's going to be a major rework, sadly not something that can be patched in during a playtest.