Hello Hawk, welcome!
It's not too early to ask. We would like to discuss about the game with external people, that's why we prepared the blog. We'll give information we can provide. For the rest you'll have to wait proper announcements on the blog or on the forum's dedicated part.
Concerning the factions, we are currently working on 2 of them, which will be kinda ready for the first tests. We plan to have a maximum of 8 factions ingame. That will mostly depend on the number of players and on the required time to prepare them (creating a faction takes months). Faction backgrounds are based on important axis that are interesting to follow in post apocalyptic worlds : Order, Technology, Religion and Economics. For now we're working on Order factions. Details will be available on the blog later, as our factions don't have complex and rich backgrounds for now. They'll most probably never have deep ones, as it's not inevitably necessary on our game. Though, it's mostly depending on team members' motivation/time, as well as on community. For now, let's say that factions shouldn't be caricatures and that your choice will hopefully be a dilemma.
About wildlife, Phoenix is quite close to our beloved California. You will then mostly face usual critters from the old Fallouts. A lot have received modifications though, some variations as well, and a few new critters based on the existing ones will appear.
About weapons and gear, you'll be informed properly on the blog. What I can say for now it that there is full loot as usual, that all gear from Fallout 2 will be obtainable, that a lot of new gear will be available (both armors and weapons), and that most of it will be craftable. Not the best ones though.
We're 10 official members on the project, but not all of us are active. More information about that will be given when time will come. Team members recruitment is closed for now but that will change soon as we'll need new partners to help us. For now the game is in alpha, I doubt it will change to beta before some more months of work are behind us. Though, the fact that we revealed the game's existence is a serious signal meaning that trying it will be possible soon.