I wish NPCs were a little bit more integrated in the game world. As it stands now, the Day-Night cycle is probably going to stay, so why not let NPCs do different things depending on what time of the day it is? I mean, in general: why not let NPCs do something?
An example, just to show what I mean:
There's this forest and in this forest is a house that's inhabited by a wood cutter. At daytime, he's doing what he's supposed to do: cut wood. Talking to him leads to him telling you, why he's doing what he's doing ("Winter is coming, so I still need to prepare more wood", etc.)
When it's night, however, he's sitting in his home and talking to him results in him telling you stories about the forest, some of them even baring hints that you can use in order to discover secrets and that ultimately can lead you to, let's say, a certain legendary that inhabits said forest.
Sounds a lot better than a tutorial that explains you, which button to press in order to open the menu, doesn't it?