It's hard to get into this game casually with friends compared to the real thing. The game pushes for many restrictions that kinda goes against the original's design, and many of it's anti-frustration features are locked behind "donations"-- at that point it's not a donation anymore??
I get you need to accomodate to MMO mechanics to adapt the original games to, well, a MMO, but it crosses a fine line where it just becomes annoying. Maybe it's just not meant to be, by design.