I understand it's in Alpha, but I just walked up to an NPC and he gave me the option to just make my character level 50. So it is now. I'm playing on android. Is this just in a free for all stage where there's no point to trying to level up yet?
That is entirely up to you at this point in development.
If you would like to challenge yourself and level up naturally you can.
But there have already been 2 level wipes so far, due to changes in combat and xp gain. Not everyone wishes to re-level their character. The NPC is just an option available to those who wish to test higher level content without the need to level all the way to it first.
Upon release, that NPC will go away.