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Diablo 3 to be announced at Paris' World Wide Invitational? Update

Posted Jun 25, 2008 at 4:25PM EST by QJ Staff

Listed in: Rumors, Titles, Genre Tags: Blizzard, Frank Pearce, pc gaming rumors, Rob Pardo

Blizzard acquires Diablo3.com - Image 1

Several fansites and forums have claimed almost in unison that Diablo 3 will be the big announcement to pour out of Blizzard's 2008 World Wide Invitational. This, they say, is from trusted inside sources.

This was after the Blizzard's own vice president of design, Rob Pardo, told GamesIndustry that they in fact had a big announcement to make once the event kick-started in Paris, France:

So you want me to announce the game before our announcement? No offense, but I think there's like 300 people here, and I'll be ripped apart by 8000 people [at the Invitational] if I pre-announce itÂ—but it's going to be really exciting. I think everybody here will be really excited about the announcement.

DiabloII.net, one of the premier fansites of Blizzard's role-playing series, has claimed that an insider source explicitly told them that the "big news" to be announced at the World Wide Invitational was definitely Diablo 3.

This comes after the fact, of course, that the game developer and publisher managed to stun the gaming populace upon requesting the acquisition of the domain Diablo3.com back in early May.

Even before that, Blizzard teased fans with a hint that a certain 50-man development squad, known only as Team 3, was at work on a "really awesome," yet mysterious game. To quote Blizzard's senior vice president, Frank Pearce, "I will totally tell you, it's really awesome." Need we go back to the rumors spawned two years ago?

The Hel rune semblance is uncanny - Image 1

Starting June 23, Blizzard began displaying a new splash page just before you could enter their main site. It appeared to be simply a portrait of ice. Along with it came a rune imprinted upon the image, which Diablo fans claim could be the Shael rune in Diablo II.

Just a day after, Blizzard's splash page was different, and the scene grew brighter as a crevice cracked open in the center of the ice, leaving the impression of encasement.

A second rune was identified, which many, and even we could confirm, to be exactly the much coveted Hel rune of Diablo 2. We say this, as it is one of the runes required for a useful runeword to boost a Hammer-focused Paladin's powers.

Several other images that appeared to indicate a "purple walrus" surfaced, though the three parts of the four part image were originally found scattered. They were named 04.jpg, 23.jpg, and 15.jpg, which if equated to alphabet positions would create "DWO." Some people say it's "WOD" or "World of Diablo." That or "DOW." We're hesitant to jump to conclusions, however.

Like we stated earlier, only three of four parts were found. The last is still missing, and it means that if the numbers do represent the game's titles, it has at least four letters in the acronym.

Lately, we've come to believe, just as people from Diablofans.com pointed out, that the letters D, O, and W are letters of Dashow's surname. If so, three more letters remain.

The progression of Blizzard's splash pages - Image 1

Just lately today, the splash page changed yet again. Like the one before it, the picture revealed a much brighter center and added another rune to the portrait. This rune, people say, actually looks much more like a symbol reflecting a Protoss tribe symbol.

More artwork of ice surfaced from where the purple monster pieces came, and we're not sure if the world of Sanctuary is all but frozen. It's likely that this is a preface to the Wrath of the Lich King beta announcement that World of Warcraft players speculate, but runes?

Arthas' Froustmourne is known to be a runesword, though so is Tyrael's crystallic AzureWrath, known in Diablo 2 as the legendary Angelic RuneBlade. Where could we stand?
We'll tell you what: if the concept artwork for the World Wide Invitational is anything but false (shown below), we go the way of the Dark Wanderer.

Sorry WoW grinders, but if true, then what Blizzard's about to unveil this coming June 28-29 is a gaming legacy reborn.

*UPDATE*: We heard that the Battle.net Forums has a new hidden section named D3 General - or at least we're told that it's just been added. Try typing the following address on the URL bar of your browser:

http://www.battle.net/forums/board.aspx?ForumName=d3-general

Apparently, you can't view anything under it, as the locator will tell you that the forum is "down." Down, we say, and it isn't a "404 -Page not found" error, either. Try appending any other address at the end of "ForumName=" and you'd get redirected to the main Battle.net Forums page. What does this all mean?

This, dear readers, would certainly clue us in that Diablo 3 is definitely being ramped up, even on Battle.net itself. More updates as we get them.

Via Blizzard

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Actually the letters relating to the numbers is unlikely, possibly a red herring provided by blizzard from the 232309 (WWI) in the link.

A more plausable conclusion is those numbers are actually from the Valenzetti Equasion as seen here: http://en.lostpedia.com/wiki/The_Valenzetti_Equation which relates to the countdown to "doomsday" and the end of the human race. In the end of Diablo 2, Tiriel had to destroy the Worldstone as it was corrupted to let the creatures of hell through to the mortal world, but destroying it would have unknown concequence, meaning the world could be safe again or in great perrel.

if you look, the numbers we have so far

04 15 16 23

numbers in the equasion

04 15 16 23 42

what makes this more suspicious is they are comming out in that order.

The other thing in the equasion which makes sense is this line "Somehow, five hieroglyphic symbols were involved in the calculations (Armand Zander described them as "representative"), the same hieroglyphs seen on the countdown timer in the Swan station."

5 Symbols? 5 Runes? sounds very convenient doesnt it.

# . — Covet 2008-06-26 08:46

God damn, i hope this is true. I've been waiting forever for a (possible) third installment. It had also better have free online, too. Blizzard hauls in enough cash with WoW

# You, my friend... — Guest 2008-06-26 11:16

...are a genius. Would you mind if I used your speculation for a new piece? With due credit, of course.

Amazing. It fits much better that the rest.

# Wow... — Woden501 2008-06-26 13:50

I have no idea what any of that means, but wow...

It's amazing that for once we have a commenter who doesn't just state the obvious. Thank you.

Anyways, It looks like Blizzard is really chugging away lately. Starcraft 2 first then Diablo 3 (hopefully), so whats next Warcraft 4 perhaps? Or, will they just start to work on expansions for the above games. Hm.... well at least it appears that they are spending the millions they are making off of WOW on something worth while.

# Ceasar dude — refractionpcsx2 2008-06-26 14:37

Ive replied to your email you sent :)

To the others: thanks, its not my theory, but its by far the best one ive heard so far!

# Thanks for the quick reply. — Guest 2008-06-26 15:05

I'll give it a go. Oh, but my piece isn't as earth-shattering. It's just to try and peer into the ice.

# maybe its worth waiting? — refractionpcsx2 2008-06-26 15:11

If you can hold out another 5 hours (roughly) the image on blizzards site will get updated, there you can dive in to the master.css and try and find whats new in the picture. Maybe reveal what is behind the ice (at least just a little). It would make it much more interesting than speculating if those eyes are the original diablo eyes or the lich kings etc ;)

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