Game Update:
Here's what I've learned so far from playing the game.
The weapon skill progression system is based on a bestiary. Ie.. if you kill 20 Bears, you might learn an ability called bear strike. If you kill 20 wizards, you might learn fireball or such.
The crafting system is also similar. If you craft 20 cloth armors, then you can make cloth armor +1. If you make 20 cloth armors +1, then you can make cloth armor +2, etc. Armor does break, and I'm not sure what the mechanics are for it because I haven't had any break yet, but I've seen others have armor break.
Supposedly this is pvp lite. Ie.. the victor can't loot the corpse of the loser. I haven't tried pvp yet so I can't verify, but thats what people seem to be saying.
It will take about 3 hours of carting stone and wood back and forth to build the smallest house and a few crafting benches. Making a cart or two is definitely a first priority if you decide to build a house. When you chop down a tree you get logs, and you can only carry one log at a time, but a cart can carry 12. Carts will decay if you don't park them in your land plot when finished with them. Stone is a similar situation, but you only get one stone block from each node. You need a lot of stone and wood, so you will be carting it back and forth, which means, put your plot in a strategic location where you can get access to all types of materials. Copper, Iron, Stone, Wood, and most importantly Gold. It takes 2000 gold a week for upkeep of a land plot. A well geared person can make 2000 gold in about 20 minutes from what I've heard. It might take me an hour to make 2000 gold right now for context.
When you die, you will respawn in the same location if you wait for 30 seconds, or if the location is not safe enough, you can suicide back to a starting point. I haven't tried the suicide option yet, but I should try it out soon I suppose.
The talent skill system is like PoE. Ie, a branching circular tree where you unlock abilities in a sequence to unlock the next.
There is no private messaging / DM system in the game and you have no ability to turn off global chat (which can be annoying at times).
I think that's the basics for now. Still haven't made up my mind whether to recommend it yet or not, but I'll hit some more difficult POI's and dungeons in the next month's time frame to give you my final recommendation.