New game on Steam works like Minecraft as an MMORPG

The sandbox MMORPG Dragon And Home officially starts beta on Steam today. It is a Free2Play game that is visually and in gameplay strongly reminiscent of Minecraft. We introduce you to the game and its ratings on Steam.

What kind of MMORPG is that? In Dragon And Home you play a character chosen by the Tree of Life to save the world. You travel to different continents and have to find a way to maintain the tree of life.

The game world has the typical block look that everyone knows from Minecraft and promises a lot of freedom. You can choose to play with your character as a melee, mage or ranged fighter. Your style of play depends entirely on the equipment you are wearing. There are a total of 4 different weapons – sword / shield, long sword, bow, magic wand – all of which have a different skill tree. Dragon and Home relies heavily on crafting: you can collect materials, make collecting tools and build your own weapons and armor. You can grow plants, feed animals and trade with other players. There is a housing system in which you can decorate according to your wishes. Teamwork should be important in order to later defeat the strongest bosses in dungeons. A group consists of up to 4 players.

In addition to the MMORPG, there is also an “offline builder” in which you can design your home according to your wishes. Here you have automatic access to all blocks, furniture and other decorative content and you can also change the terrain as you wish, as in Minecraft.

Basically, Dragon and Home looks like an adapted version of Hytale, a Minecraft MMORPG that was already heavily celebrated by fans in 2019 and later even bought by Riot Games. However, this game has not yet been released. If you want to shorten the waiting time, you can now take a look at Dragon And Home.

Criticism for the combat system and monetization

Who can play Dragon And Home now? The new MMORPG has been in western beta since October 15th and is completely free to play for everyone. In addition, dedicated servers for Europe and America were also provided. A Chinese server for Dragon And Home was released on Steam as early as August 2021, with some users also able to play outside of China. Therefore there are already some reviews, but they also contain a lot of criticism.

What do the first players say? Dragon and Home currently only gets 55% positive reviews out of 436 reviews. The players primarily criticize two things.

For one, the combat system is said to have problems. Normal opponents at low levels should already have a lot of life points and battles drag on accordingly. In addition, the hit detection should not be good. The balance between the classes should only be moderate, since players with swords and shields in particular have a disadvantage compared to ranged fighters.

On the other hand, the shop is a thorn in the side of many. The developers promise that there will be no Pay2Win, but there are working points for collecting and crafting. When these points have expired, you have to wait or pay real money. In addition, costumes cost the equivalent of over 30 dollars and there is an item for just under 4 dollars that releases equipment once you have put on it, so that you can then sell it.

Note: The developers have now announced in the Discord that they will take another look at the system around the working points. A purchase option seems to be disabled at the moment, instead players will receive Vigor free of charge in the mail.

What about the promised dungeons and bosses? The first dungeons will be unlocked with level 10. The max level in the MMORPG is 20. However, the first dungeons should be so difficult and require so much equipment that you can only really experience them at level 18. And for that, casual gamers would have to invest a few weeks in the game.

You can invest a lot of time in a free game, but the game also has its pitfalls: leveling is incredibly tedious and you have to do quests to reach new levels, as the mobs hardly give you experience points. This game needs some serious Quality of Life changes; it’s just too tedious to complete basic things. The game is still in the testing phase, so hopefully there will be some major changes.