Fast travel between the major zones will be available after reaching certain parts in the quest line, so that it's easier to travel back to places you've already fully adventured through.
Regarding "intellectual assets", all the classes, spells, skills, and crafting recipes for levels 1-40 (the max level) are done and created. All of the zones are layed out, now it's a matter of filling them with quests. The 1-5 zone, for instance, already has a nice google docs file with every quest in it explained and laid out. I got a very good start on the lore of the game today with this and some other things I worked on too.
In regards to actual art assets, we have a really good base going that we can expand off easily when we start needing to. The main character sprite is completely finalized and animated, much of the base tile set is done and can be variated on. All of the items for levels 1-5 are created and just need to be paperdolled.
For the alpha we want to have a completely fleshed out level 1-5 experience and I'd say we're about half way there given everything we have.