Gamehag.com

What could be better than playing fun online games? Earning amazing rewards for doing so. Sounds too good to be true?

While the skepticism is understandable, there are reward sites that deliver as promise; and this one is no exception. There are plenty of games and rewards to be had, so follow me into the world of Gamehag.

Aye, Thar Be Wizardry

Level/Rank Emblems plus Mod Emblem

Seriously, it's the site's theme. You are greeted with a slightly eerie greenish screen and a somewhat pleasant individual named Misty. Whether you're a social butterfly or wallflower, you'll be interacting with Misty a lot during your time on the site.

Not only does she provide tutorials, but she's also your ticket to getting help fast. As a means to make it as easy as possible to contact her, she's placed in your friends list. It's okay, she's not the only friend you can have; you just have to find some more.

The site's theme, as mentioned prior, is wizardry based. Every available rank is named after something related to witches and wizards. There are thirty ranks (similar to levels) available and six classes; each represented by a colored emblem (bronze, silver, gold, sapphire, amethyst and onyx).

Within each class are marks of distinction; five total. In addition to the standard six emblems there's a seventh and those are reserved for moderators. Moderators get a ruby (red) emblem so that they stand out against the other site members.

An Adventure Awaits

After entering the site, you can do a quick browse of what the site has to offer along with see the many awards that await. Once you sign up for the site, you are taken on a tour to learn the ropes and navigate to where you want. When done, you can then proceed to customize your account.

Once your profile is squared away, you can begin your adventure. However, first things first.

Familiarize Yourself With the Site

Navigation aside, you will need to familiarize yourself with how the site functions. This includes rules for proper etiquette along with how to earn XP and SG (experience and soul gems). XP is needed for leveling and SG is needed for purchasing goods from the shop.

There are lots of activities on the site that you can engage in for earning XP and SG. Game offers top the list as they grant lots of SG and XP points once completed successfully. Second to game offers is participating in the forums with article writing coming in third; you won't earn XP from articles.

On the SG spending side, you have the option to spend SG in the Rewards Shop for different game related goods or spend them on Chests. Of the chests available, there are three that you can get for free. The Steam Chest can be claimed daily as long as you follow the instructions to become eligible for the chest; the instructions are very specific so follow them carefully.

The Free Chests of the Chest Section

The second chest is the Weekly Chest which can be claimed every 7-days. Thirdly is the Monthly Chest which can be claimed every 30-days and like the Steam Chest there are specific requirements for claiming. As a heads up, each chest gives a different reward.

Steam Chests will either reward SG or a rune (an item that grants a temporary bonus). Weekly Chests will reward a random rune. Monthly Chests will either reward a random game key or a random Steam CD key.

The Experience

My experience on the site thus far has been an adventurous one. Setup was simple and I was able to complete a game offer within 24-hours. It was a nice trip down memory lane after seeing some old sites I use to play on; like Wartune, Second Life and IMVU for example.

Even did some reading of the posted articles and browsed the forums for a bit. While it is a pleasant site to hang out on, there are some things that would make being on the site more enjoyable.

The Frog System

It really needs to go. Not everyone can jump on every offer presented. The way it's setup now, if you don't complete an offer every seven days then you risk becoming a frog which means you won't be able to collect the daily login bonus.

The login bonus wasn't mentioned earlier because it's not permanent. In addition to this, your rewards are reduced after becoming a frog. Upon reaching toad status, 30-days after becoming a frog, you will begin to lose SG.

If this system went away, it would make things so much more enjoyable. You would be able to earn SG from checking in daily plus you can focus on enjoying the games as opposed to worrying about when you'll lose your status for not finding a decent offer.

The XP Nightmare

I've participated on a variety of forums over the years and all of the experiences have been positive. Gamehag would be the first where forum participation needs to be approached with caution. There are lots of interesting topics to engage with, but if you engage too much you will get dinged; in more ways than one.

Since forum participation is one of a few sources for XP, there is a limit of five posts per 24-hours. Even if you're okay with not earning XP for any extra posts, it's not worth the trouble that surfaces for doing so. Going over the minimum amount will cause your posts to be viewed as spam and chances are all posts will be deleted thus causing you to lose XP.

Even when you contribute meaningful content, there's still a chance that your post could be flagged or worse, the thread you responded in could be deleted altogether thus causing XP loss. While the recommendation says five posts many users have advised to do just less of that to keep from running into issues. Posting too much can also result in a shadow ban (temporary), without warning, but you can usually tell when something you post disappears immediately.

A suggestion would be to stop punishing users for using the forums. Even better, be thorough with investigating posts that are flagged as spam. There have been lots of meaningful posts that get removed as spam when they're not while the actual spam posts stay intact.

Better Transparency

While a lot of information is shared and disclosed when you first sign on, there are some details that aren't fully shared. Touching back on what was discussed prior, the deleting of forum posts without warning or even a heads up is a pain. A little message about this on the user's page would be nice so users aren't left wondering why their XP disappeared.

Yes there are forum posts explaining why posts get deleted, but these posts aren't pinned on the main forum page for quick reference. To top it off, they don't address the situation fully as there are posts that get deleted for no reason. Speaking of messages, a news post of some kind alerting users of current site issues. 

When there are multiple posts about an issue and it's known by the devs, it would be in everyone's best interest to communicate this and other issues in an official post for all to see. It's not enough to respond to a conversation about it in the forums as chances are high that said conversation will be deleted. Then there's the rewards shop.

There are lots of interesting goodies in the rewards shop to be had, but unfortunately there's a requirement. You have to be Level 3 in order to claim any reward from the shop; which makes the XP nightmare even scarier. Needing to be a specific level for rewards is disheartening enough, but when you add the inability of completing available offers along with the risk of losing XP from forum participation it becomes quite discouraging.

Some options, either lower the level requirement or do away with it all together. If removing the level requirement is a no go then I suggest making the XP earning aspect of the site a little less of a pain.

What's the Verdict?

Overall, Gamehag is a nice site for game rewards and for discovering new games to play. That said, it could use some TLC to make it more of a welcoming environment. Leveling is a slow and tedious process as gaining XP is hit and miss.

Just glancing at the forums you would think that no one is able to get past Level 2; however this is far from fact. There are a good bit of users that are Level 3 and up. The highest level seen, not counting Misty, is Level 29. 

So it's possible to level up but there are barriers, that need removing if not some adjusting, to make the leveling up process less painful. Not only this but better communication between devs, mods and site participants. All-in-all it's a nice site with lots to offer.