Well this released today and from what I have seen of it nothing much has changed from my previous look; random mob spawns and quests like find the spell, slay the undead, kill the dragons still dominate the early game... in the exact same order... every time. Call me crazy but I don't find the appeal of having your direct competition, the opposing great mages, take a back seat to random trash spawns and predictable quests (in exiled mode at least) in a turn based strategy game. Of course you could play the sandbox mode over exiled but it is too much like Warlock 1 for me.
Also there still isn't a campaign for some reason which boggles my mind considering this is supposedly now a retail game that has a campaign & a map button that do nothing. If they intended these features to be mod exclusive then they should provide an in game indicator at the very least despite how lazy it makes Paradox look. This isn't Europa or Crusader Kings, the mechanics that make those games playable and more importantly re playable in a pure sandbox setting are absent and are instead IMO inadequately replaced by flashy spells and fantasy flavor.