Am I missing something?

To address a few other issues you'd raised, Rageburn, houses can be taken over and manipulated. I found to do this you have to read the sign in front of the house, at which time it will tell you who owns it and give you a chance to take it over. (I personally wish the signs would just have actual runic text on them once I got close enough rather than having to click on a blank sign.)

As for NPCs, I had the hardest time figuring this out, but primarily because my chat box was almost always hidden. Coming near an NPC, they would actually speak to me, with certain phrases or words underlined. I could attempt to converse with them (though right now it feels slightly above Ultima V and slightly below Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy), or just click on the underlined portions to effectively "ask" them more. Once I realized how it worked, I warmed to it quickly. (This was after 1-2 hours of "why do I have to click repeatedly on him before he'll do anything?)

Now, if only I could find the actual Guardhouse. Nothing's marked...

 

They should really fix the default mode of the NPC chat box to keeping the box up after you"ve replied. I spent a frustrating half hour pressing the "/" key to keep the conversation going before finding out there was an option that would keep the box open for me.