I played Marosia for several months, from early 2022 to the end of 2022. I quit of my own accord and wanted to leave a review as honest as I can manage to make it, so here goes:
The first few weeks were amazing. It takes a bit of figuring out and getting used to things, but the Discord server is always there for help and advice. Soon my first character was starting to form connections and become part of her local community and I was refreshing the page constantly for new replies. I was thrilled when I discovered 'artifacts' of Marosian history--old letters and notices, items left behind in an abandoned settlement. It was as if I'd encountered a great mystery just waiting for its story to be told. Everything was exciting, new, fresh, and I was hooked.
These are the good things about Marosia: the exploration, the things left behind by other characters, intensely emotional scenes, the slow formation of connections as your character makes their way through the world.
If things had continued that way, I'd have stayed. There are players I am genuinely honored to call friends and to have met at all to begin with. There are memorable characters that are a delight to write with.
However, the deeper you dig, the less enjoyable the game becomes. The more you participate in the community, the more evident it becomes that there is a fundamental problem with toxicity and lack of trust. If you do get invested in the game, you need to remember that there are players you absolutely cannot trust and that you're more or less responsible for yourself. Staff won't intervene unless there is a rulebreak involved, or if specific people are involved.
This brings me to the reasons why I quit. I really, really didn't want to, but unless or until the Marosian community changes for the better, I refuse to play again. I am not going to compromise my mental health over a game. I also refuse to play when certain players with known histories of manipulative and deviant behaviors are allowed to play with no way to avoid interacting with them.
The community itself is comprised of several cliques, but some of these are genuinely toxic and detrimental to the community as a whole. Some players themselves are extremely toxic and have been allowed to perpetuate their toxic behavior more or less unimpeded, including but not limited to: gaslighting, OOC harrassment, powerplaying, terrible etiquette and in some cases even worse breaches of conduct. At most these players have been given slaps on the wrist for their misconduct and are still allowed to play the game just like everyone else. I am frankly disgusted that some players, despite a well-documented history of repulsive and/or malicious behavior, are still allowed to play (while others who did similar things were simply banned).
This is, of course, because of a lax atmosphere of accountability. Mistrust is rampant because in most cases staff will find a reason not to intervene. It's also fairly evident that staff are disconnected from the community as a whole and have formed an insular friend group that makes it more difficult for them to see things from a player perspective. In other words...most of the time, your complaints are your own problem and you are expected to figure them out yourself. This has led to many players not bothering to make reports anymore which has only further enabled poor etiquette and bad behavior.
I really want to like staff--I have nothing but respect for people who take the time to run things like this, and most of the people on staff are genuinely nice people. However, I can't forgive knowingly keeping someone who is very emotionally manipulative (using manipulation tactics to get what they want from characters and players alike while isolating the player and pretending to be kind and caring) on staff, nor can I forgive abuses of power in order to make a favorable outcome. There are several instances of this happening, and it's fairly obvious that there is some degree of favoritism involved. There comes a point where denying it doesn't work anymore. There are many examples of this. I wanted to be a part of something big when I first joined--by the time that something big happened, it just made me want to quit even sooner. The same characters who by all rights should be dead continue to drive plots forward that only favor certain players and as a new player it's nothing short of immensely frustrating. It's not fun to be a minor character in somebody else's story. It feels like, to be blunt, bullshit--that the same players and characters are rewarded and involved in important events that you have to find out about in the game, have to know the right characters and be in the right place at the right time for...and then to expect everyone to be happy or excited about once again being pushed aside, excluded or, even worse, completely screwed over because what they want is superseced by what certain other people want.
Marosia could be as wonderful as the home page paints it to be, but only if drastic measures are taken to make staff accountable and responsible as well as the problematic players. There also needs to be changes made to help staff with burnout--as much as staff may contribute to current problems, they're people too, and they need to take a step back and reassess how they handle things in their capacity as staff and if they're truly capable of maintaining separation. The head admin in particular should do this. There's only so much anyone can do before stress starts to get to them and being defensive and wholly resistant to any criticism just makes for a poor leader.
If you refuse to listen to your players, they will become bitter, and they will leave. There should never be an atmosphere of fear to speak up. There should never be a feeling that speaking up is pointless or will get people into trouble.
In short: if you want a casual experience, Marosia will fit the bill. If you're looking for a truly immersive game with a good community, I suggest looking elsewhere until Marosia gets it together.
Call me just a bitter player or whatever you want, but I'm genuinely sad to be leaving, and I do hope the game improves.
Edit:
After a discussion spiraled into an argument in the Discord, staff have decided to double down on taking action against those who are vocally upset instead of hearing them out. I'm disappointed. I tried to apologize but it didn't seem to be enough, so I left the Discord after being insulted. If you plan on leaving a review yourself, I highly reccomend remaining anonymous if you have criticism.
Final Edit: When I say 'staff' in this review, I mean (and only mean) the role, not the person fulfilling it. I'm upset, yes, but I'm upset with the entity that is Marosian staff and not the people making up the staff team. The people on staff are by and large wonderful and truly nice. They have nothing but my utmost respect on a personal level. Unfortunately it just tends to seem like even they are wary of upsetting the status quo which...sucks.