You can do the zones in any order you want, and within the zones, you can do the zone quests in any order you want. Although preserving the original order in at least the zones does make for a better story.

Generals now drop at any Dolmen, and there is a new system in place that gives a better chance to spawn a general you don't have. The General Executioner Achive is a lot less tedious to get now. Go to Alikir and join the Dolmen Rotation group there and you will have it in less than a few hours (plus FG leveled to 10)

All content and characters are scaled to CP160 now, which really means your buffed big time early on and the buff diminishes as you level up. Gear is important now to the point that you should be wearing something, it does not need to be best, just something helpful to your character while leveling. Don't forget Jewelry. This can be mob drop crap in off traits if you want. Its just Set Bonuses have a lot more bang with the handicapping than they used to.