IGN has a preview of up of Vanguard : Saga of Heroes's newest Beta 5. This is the last phase of the beta testing and you can join in on the fun by downloading the beta from here. Here are some of the new features in Beta 5:

With boats working properly we are opening up a ton of player housing islands throughout the world. You can now find plots on the mainland and off the coasts of Thestra, Qalia, and Kojan to build a house on. Player housing in Vanguard is not instanced, if you own a house it will be part of the actual game world for everyone to see.

All thirteen starting cities are now open.

All nineteen races are now playable.

Some changes that should significantly increase performance as well as shrink the size of the Vanguard directory are being added and updated.

On 12/21/2006 at 10:00AM the first Vanguard PvP beta test server went live.

The diplomacy sphere, a concept new to MMOs, has a substantial amount of content in the game and is now being polished.

Flying mounts are in. Players will be able to fly around on griffons, drakes, pegasus's and more. Flying mounts are not on tracks, players will be able to take or direct them nearly anywhere.

Factions. Players will no longer be able to walk freely in all areas. There will also be ways to lose and gain faction with just about every conceivable organization in the game.