I sure hope there will be more npc's outside the tower/last city. From what I've seen in Old Russia, there are only enemies to shoot in the world and no small camps/villages with friendlies in it. I could imagine there being groups of people not wanting to live in the last city, for several reasons, and thus go exploring and building new villages or outposts. Maybe it's just not located in Old Russia, maybe it's left out in the beta, but i sure hope there will be npc's in the 'open' world ready to give you missions and such. Would be way better than only having the beacons on the explore map to give you missions. .. Oh and having multiple missions active at the same time would be great aswell.