Buddy, if some organisation exists that has members, there will always exist “de facto” members (ones that support the organisation to a large extent, but are not also de jure members), de jure members (members that don’t do anything) and both (the rest).
The organisation can make PR about how it has “partners” and the like, but that does not change a thing.
Oh yes, I played a mage in both and the difference was startling. In the first part you have immensly powerful spells, that could also backfire hard because the game had friendly fire. At high levels you could wipe everything on the screen, including your party. In the second, friendly fire was gone so you could blast away and suddenly you spun around like a kung-fu master for some reason.