@Merelambasted and @Mattwo7 , the alpha lobby... i'm not sure. The way some areas are boarded up and closed does imply that at some point this was intended to indeed be the launch lobby (look closely at the Shop Area to see all the closed shops). Here is more of the overall lobby (shopping district)

And a tour of the same lobby from the game's second alpha test.
I suppose going a bit off topic but admittedly the alpha for its few flaws really did have a lot of neat things going for it which I much preferred over the final game:
The Old Hud
PSO2's alpha Hud an appearance which I personally quite prefer over what we got now.

This overall aesthetic is even carried over to the character creator:

In addition to its appearance and aesthetic I also appreciate how the layout for things like healthbars is similar to that of PSO1:

An even earlier (non-playable, internal only) demo also used this orange-looking hud with Hud placements even more akin to Phantasy Star Online Blue Burst.

Visual Differences
Naverius originally had a planet / moon orbiting it in its skybox:

Some of the icons were changed from the first alpha. Some of these were changed to be clearer... admittetly the alpha version's Telepipe icon was not too visible. That said the brightly coloured icons for weapons or the detailed item icons are definitely something I miss:

Some of the items on the field were going to be quite detailed as well. Monomates would drop not as green boxes like in PSO1 but as the actual item itself similar to how some weapon drops appear as in the final game. This one is one im divided on, I do like the nostalgia throwback but also feel that it would have been neat (the canister in the screenshot is a Monomate):

Also aint got a video of it but apparently the old Monomate animation did not have you drinking the Monomate but rather injecting it. This was apparently changed due to Japanese players finding it "unpleasant" apparently.
Old Way of Joining a Quest
This one.. might be a mixed bag for some. On one hand, the current way of joining a quest and multi party area is indeed quite streamlined but on the other hand, I have seen some people confused about the way joining quests work.

The way you used to join quests was as follows:
- You would pick the quest you want to play.
- You would then get a list of Multi-Party Sessions as well as an option on top to simply host a session yourself.
- (If you didn't make a new session) you would get a list of parties to join in that session as well as the option of making a new party within that session.
Old Announcer
This one thankfully stayed on all the way to the second alpha at least. Here (Mobile Users skip to 0:33) is an example of the old "Emergency Code" announcer or as it was known at the time... "Initiating Code".

So yeah, quite a lot of neat stuff the closed alpha had!