Being a former Materia Magica player, I can tell you that their donation system is extremely detrimental to the fairness and integrity of the game.

One of the donation items, "a token of renewal", will extend the expiration period of certain powerful donation items. Many many experienced players will camp in the CPK (pk rooms where you will lose all equipments if killed) and ambush less experienced players, and solicit donation items, such as the token of renewal, for their equipments in return.

If you don't have certain donation items, such as the spell delivery aura(shortens spell casting time), and spectral aura (gives a large HP/SP and armor bonus), don't even bother trying to pk people.

The reason why MM is fairly successful is because the game has an extremely long character development period, therefore the player turnover rate is relatively slow. Many aspects of the gameplay are built on "the skinner model" to create an artifical addiction similar to Everquest. For example, you can only do 5 quests on MM per 6 hours, and quests are essential to character development, many players actually arrange their day around this questing schedule to get as many quests as possible, forming an addictive habit.

The result is similar to Everquest as well. Players start to hate the game and administration after a while, but can't stop playing. I know many MM players that swear up and down to quit, but come back a few weeks later.

It is pretty unethical, IMO.

It should really be no surprise that Materia Magica has a number of negative reviews.