This is my experience with the game:

In the beginning, you don't have a clue about what the game is about. You just do what seems to be logical: gain as much XP and gold as possible, and grow more and more. In this scenario, fast leveling is funny, and easy to understand: the more you play, the more you grow.

Then you reach a point where you play and play, and levels are harder to reach. And you also have to start thinking on followers to keep growing. The social part becomes much more enjoyable than the "quest and win" part; players 10 levels below you can be more powerful if they have more followers. And if you manage your followers correctly, you don't really need many slots available in your squad, as all stats/power will go bottom-up if you put your lesser followers with your higher followers. Lots of space for strategy... and politics. Playing solo becomes useless after some time; or at least not as profitable as in the beginning.

And note that we're still lacking one of the core features of the game: ambushes. As soon as they're enabled, questing alone won't be safe anymore. A well balanced party of lower level players can easily beat you if you're playing alone. And not to mention that playing alone you will "burn" quests you can do faster, so you'll get much less for the same effort.

So I'm just bitting my nails waiting for ambushes and skills/spells being enabled, so that we can get a clear idea of the whole picture about GM .