Secret areas of Hellgate: London

Some of the secret areas of Hellgate: London that you've probably not seen before. :) All of them except the boring or broken ones are shown here. If it's not here, it's not in the game as of 0.5.

action test

I'm assuming this level was designed to test pathing behaviour of the various mobs in game. When it spawned ravagers it was quite lethal with them jumping over walls and such. :)

character creation

Know that background when you're creating/selecting a character with the phone booth? Well, guess who's hiding there? That's right, the incredibly annoying vendor, Oarf. :) Bet you'd never have guessed that, eh? They probably use him as a placeholder for where to insert your character model while changing its looks around. He sells a bunch of level 1 gear.

full polygon simulation

A bunch of template primitives with building graphics in a huge level apparently designed to stress test the renderer.

havok fx demo level

For the interestingly named 'havok fx demo level' it was kinda a disappointment - it's just a square level with a bumpy grass area in the middle. I assume it was used to bounce weapons off of like the sawblade launcher.

mini city rare

A small, generic city, but it's affected by the Blood Moon rare event. Note the reddish hue of the level. I assume this was to test the Blood Moon event.

monster field

Feels kinda like being in the holodeck when it malfunctions. ;) The tunnel leads to nowhere.

park city

One of the many "I wonder what happens when the randomization parameters are way out of whack" levels. It generates massive park levels. The rest of them (alley city, boulevard city, etc.) are omitted as they're boring.

parking lot

Apparently, there is ample parking space at the end of the universe. :) This parking lot floating in the void has various primitives from different levels in the game - emergency cars, destroyed cars, millitary cars, british museum props, vendor props, and.. NACHO. Was probably used as a reference by the level designers.

river

A template for river levels. At the end is a chest rather than a way out.

sound field part deux

A grid of different surfaces - jumping on them makes different noises when you hit it corresponding to the sound it describes. E.g., "HEAVY METAL!!!" is, well, metal. :) A notable exception is "CAR" - apparently stomping on little girls makes a metallic sound.

tube b

Some sort of tube that we've not seen in the game - the textures are partially missing or corrupted which is why the entryway looks like the video card threw up on it. Note the explosion also - you can see pixels above it that are glowing with the color of the explosion rather than the color of the background - the wall texture has some transparent pixels in it.

town portal

I guess there used to be an intermediate level between locations - this thing that when you're standing in the middle of it is animated to make it look like you're falling through a warp. You can step outside of it and get a better look at it.

cow level

Sorry, there is no cow level. Maybe they'll patch one in later. It damn well better not be subscriber only..

Anyway, I hope you've enjoyed the tour! :)

- Kral <kral@variadic.org>