I've played this game for nearly four(ish) years, once from the position of someone of (relative) sway and popularity and the second time entirely anonymous without influence and the two experiences not only prove a pattern, but show how toxic the community of the game is and it's direct correlation to enjoying the game. When I was popular and friends with the admin team, I received boons and story benefits. When I was an anonymous nobody, I got nothing.
The Admin team have always meant well, but unfortunately they are mired down by the obscene levels of favouritism among themselves and their close friends. Friends of the mods gain immortal characters, super powers, special magic or otherwise long, carefully cultivated plotlines - the excuse from the mod team for any criticism of this is 'they contribute more, thus they deserve more', but they don't realize that you're bound to contribute more to the game when you have special powers and privileges keeping you safe from danger and making the otherwise boring 'slice of life' RP everyone else endures much more interesting for yourself at the expense of others. A standard player dies, or is attacked, or imprisoned - and nothing really can help them aside from luck or other players - one of the favourites though? They get revived, teleported away by a God, or otherwise bestowed with an an after death boon of some sort that either brings them back stronger or actually makes them into a Demigod/God in some cases. The admin team will insist that 'you too' can enjoy special storylines if you apply, but mostly all applications are rejected and you're more or less limited to 'one' special storyline in the rare event you ARE accepted - meanwhile, friends of the admins have three or four characters that have godhood/immortality in some form or other. But remember, they contribute more! This is flawed for more than just the obvious reasons. If someone is only able to log on and RP for an hour a day and does so, he is contributing 100% of their free time to RP and contribute - if someone else has more access to Marosia and has 12 hours a day free and only contributes 6 hours, then they're only contributing 50% of their free time, but are giving six times as much posts to the game. Quantity is rewarded, not necessarily quality (not saying the quality is typically bad), and that means if you don't have the time to be posting six times an hour and responding to all RP, good look being considered a worthwhile contributor to the game.
What's worse, positions for any status in the community, such as new admin or mod posts are almost immediately filled by the same players who benefit from the god-like boons, which means in addition to the crazy amount of story they already enjoy, they suddenly ascend to a higher status of DM and are able to turn otherwise undeserving characters into literal Gods. There was actually an instance of a bandit becoming some sort of Demi-god because they represented 'strife', and there have been no shortage of 'God reworks' where suddenly the most unassuming character in existence becomes the new God of Fate or something, and investigation as to how inevitably reveals an OOC connection to the admin team. It's actually become a meme outside of the main community discord.
The game is so unbalanced than a group of seven bandits (no, just bandits, not super bandits, literally just bandits) can otherwise terrorize the entire world, raze capitals and kill powerful endgame bosses - any attempt to criticize this insanely nonsensical power difference is met with a few responses by admins: A) Gather a group of good guys and combat them (This is impossible, given not only that the bad guys usually have some sort of admin/god backup or special powers, but also have nothing to lose ICly, they just make a new bandit and rejoin or something, whereas if you die, you're abandoning your IC projects/family/friends/city/ongoing RP)
B) Run away if you see them, or hide (Also impossible, as you can break down doors, siege buildings using magic, and all of the bad guys have probably stolen all the fastest mounts or been given them by admins etc)
C) Die. (Yep. Don't like it? Just cull the character. Nevermind you're a Father of seven or whatever and enjoying the RP you're involved in. Just die.)
Drama is not only encouraged on this game, but it's outright 'protected'. Any attempt to just get on and do something productive is met with literal OOC scorn by the admin and their close knit group of fans, as ignoring this insufferable dramafest is considered to be inconsiderate of 'their RP preferences' - and any criticism directed at the drama itself, such as banditry, is often swept away so as to not hurt the feewings of the bad guy players who contribute so much :((( Think how THEY feel, guys!! (Nevermind one or two of the admins are probably part of the warband. Shh.) Indeed, if you try to point out how they're being inconsiderate of YOUR RP preferences, refer to A, B, or C. And just to be clear, there was one occasion where all of the drama-disliking players banded together to kick the ass of the bandits, pretty much abandoning their own RP in the process to finally put the matter to bed, and guess what happened? The bandit leaders got teleported away by the Admingods, or outright healed/saved in some capacity.
I could go into the mechanics of the game, like how it doesn't make sense an eight year old can somehow be a better swordsman than a fourty year old who's been living in the wild simply because he was born to another swordsman, and how unbalanced the skill system is in general, but honestly, its been covered in responses below. Well, it WAS covered, before the admins got all the negative reviews that said bad things removed. And that's the other thing - think that you can try and take these criticisms to the admins in ANY way? Ha. No. I've seen the admin chat, been a part of it - they outright dismiss any criticism of the system, and even these reviews aren't taken seriously in any way. More often than not, they're mocked in some capacity, and some friend of the admin (usually a player in a position of benefit in game) comes on here to give a 5/5 citing how fun it is for them, negating to mention that they're benefiting in some way in order to try and bump the score up from 2/5 to 3/5.
Not worth it, in the long term. Whilst you may find some diamonds in the rough, some great players, and the community CAN be wholesome, you're eventually either going to become a favourite of the admins and see nothing inherently wrong, or more likely, exist on the outside and feel burned out in no time flat.