Hi, glad to hear that you are liking the server. My advice to you for now, get some friends. It'll help you in the long run.
So here's the thing, no one is lying here. The main storyline quest, Fate of the god ep 1 (Frigg shield quest), ep 2(blessed and cursed ring lower headgear), ep 2.5(guardian ring lower headgear) and ep 3(the latest, for accessories) has both the donation and non donation counterpart where at the end of each quest, you will decide to pick between those two options.
For example, the Frigg shield quest.
To get Frigg king shield (donate), you need to handover 2 of Forsaken King shield (obtainable via tokenshop or Forsaken King room in forsaken city) whereas the non donation shield, Frigg Knight shield need to handover 2 of Forsaken Knight Shield (given at the end of Forsaken Knight quest) at the end of the quest.
The same goes for the ring quest,
There are two options you can choose:
Say that I'm making cursed ring, my options are,
1. Donation Cursed Ring requires:
1 Infernal Cape of the corresponding class (if I'm making sniper cursed it must be infernal sniper cape/variants)
2. Non-donation Cursed Ring requires:
one quest poring, poporing, and drops rucksack each and one quest RAW. (These 4 items are gain through quests in game)
The guides for both donation and non donation are the same. Only at the end of the quest (the last npc) differ where you give donation item for full stat item or non donation for 80% stats item.
Side note, donating isn't the only way to get these donation items. I bet you now aware that tokens are the main currency to exchange item in game between players. Work for these tokens either by selling zenies, farming stuff for people or hunting MVP and sell the cards. When you have enough tokens you can buy the donation item that you need from other players.
Regarding the spiritual whispers. These quests are meant to be hard to be done. Can't expect everything to be spoon fed to us. Competing for the materials also one of the challenges in order to complete the quest. Some people play extra hours just to get the SWs. I know not everyone has the time to spend to play 24/7 but disregarding the peoples who gives extra efforts won't do them justice if you simply asked to make stuff easier. So no to more and faster spawns or limitation of loots cause selling rare drops also one of the way to make token in game.
Also, everything gets harder and harder the farther you go. If you think sws are ridiculous, there are materials that are even harder to get that can only be farmed via raiding where you need to form a party of people to defeat a dungeon with multiple waves of hundreds of mobs within an hour time limit with 50% or lower drop chance of the said item.
Btw I'm not here to discouraging or flaming you. Just a heads up of whats more to come. I hope I cleared some thing for you ?