Crassmaster: I'm a huge fan of this game, and there are a lot of very good mods out there for it as well.
If you're someone who likes truly open world games where you aren't given direction but just unleashed upon the world, you'll like it. If you aren't, you won't.
Kingoftherings: Open worlds are nice, but it helps to have some direction at the very beginning.
Like I said in my earlier post, after the combat tutorial I didn't know what to do. Maybe they've improved that since the beta.
If you want quests, you can get them from various lords or regional rulers, town officers, village chiefs and the like. You can sign on with a lord to follow him in to war, you can sign on with someone who wants to usurp a throne, engage in combat competitions and so on. There are quests everywhere, you just have to look for them.
Also, where you recruit people from has a huge effect on how your army develops. Recruit villagers from the steppes and you'll have a load of horse mounted archers and troops. Recruit from the Nords and you'll have some rather well armored foot infantry. And so on.