Well, I guess very young commoners were still apprenticed to mages, so you may be a common-class sorcerer's apprentice (think Mickey in Fantasia).
I liked:
As we were already told Strongholds are in, but they are more then "window dressing". They will serve as the PCs base of operations and will be important to the main story.
You can hire NPCs to staff your stronghold and gain benefits from such. The example given is you can hire a Scholar to research new spells while you are away on a quest.
Companions who join you will you have their own motivation, interests and depending on your actions may open up side quests for you... or tick them off and have them up and leave. They will work similar to KotOR2 and it's influence system.
and I hope this will not be as gimmicky as it might be, should the accountants run rampant through the latter part of the development cycle ...