Aside from several screenshots of the game in action, we find out that characters will indeed have both first and last names on creation, in the style of Guild Wars and Dungeons and Dragons Online. The battle system will apparently use staggered sets of abilities rather than steady auto-attacks, something more akin to City of Heroes than Final Fantasy XI. Learned abilities can be used regardless of a character's class, allowing extensive mix-and-match play with each character.
In addition to all of that, we also learn just how deep the character building is: levels allow you to improve your stats and skill levels allow access to new abilities, but almost everything is built on player choice. There's a lot for Final Fantasy XIV fans to digest, but the game is shaping up to be very different than its predecessor while retaining the same rich flavor.
