It is confirmed by the dev that there will be absolutely no mining/digging involved. He plans to add crafting out of mob drops. Houses are supported, however (not sure how you will build them). There will be shops for weapons, armors, potions and all that good stuff.
I'm kind of dissapointed by the lack of "Sandboxing" compared to minecraft. If you could mine for ores and refine into armor and whatnot this would be great. I guess monsters will be dropping the ores and other stuffs.