Diablo 3?

[Fadedsun]

So, Blizzard has been releasing these images over the past couple days to prepare us for an announcement. Blizzard fans have been piecing together a puzzle that says it's possibly Diablo 3.

Here's the forum with all the clues fit together thus far.

http://www.sclegacy.com/showthread.php?t=151

[D-Rider]

A WoW expansion, Starcraft 2, and now a new Diablo?  Has Blizzard EVER had three projects going at once? :P

I just hope the demons and humans don't put aside their differences and join forces to fight off orcs from another planet. :P

[Losfer]

Yeah, I've been glued to non work related sites at work for the last two days.  Blizz's recent acquisition of diablo3.com is also interesting.

The Wiki page opn Diablo 3 has...  So much conspiracy stuff on it, it's been nominated for deletion.  I recommend checking it out, good stuff.

[Ryos]

Well, it's somewhat obvious they've been working on some Diablo game, though the next gen MMO deal throughout the Blizzard pages leads me to think it's more likely a World of Diablo type deal than Diablo III, unless you're ok with the whole Final Fantasy take on that naming system...Guess we'll know for sure before long.

[Masamune]

Just needs to be Diablo II with more then 8 people per game.  Bigger scale, but please not World of Diablo.  I'm sure Blizzard knows what they are doing, they have no interest at all in competing with themselves.  They know WoW's appeal is probably not going to gain anymore momentum and it's time to head back to the good old money maker Diablo.

They already announced that there's some major changes coming for Battle.Net.  Hopefully they'll kill two birds with one stone and make the necessary changes for a larger scale Diablo as well.

[Losfer]

Yeah, I don't expect a World of Diablo...  I mean, they own the MMO market already, so.

Anyway, some potential "proof" from 4chan's /v/ board:

Evidence for it being Diablo 3:
- Two runes appear in the ice, one may be the Shael rune, may not be. The other is indisputably the Hel rune.
- the WWI falls on the 8 year anniversary of Diablo 2.
- It's been leaked that Blizzard is announcing a NEW GAME.
- TWO unnamed secret projects have been in the works for a long time. One is an MMO, one is not.
- The numbers of the two 'secret' images revealed so far correspond with letters in the name "DIABLO". 04.jpg = D, 15.jpg = O.
- An image from the 2008 European WWI site shows Diablo standing front and center, above Arthas and Kerrigan.
- Blizzard has only done elaborate, slow splash page teaser reveals for NEW GAMES, not expansions that have been well-known about for a year.
- Blizzard loves to fuck with people. The splash page for the WoW announcement was SPACE themed.
- The Splash page appears on not just worldofwarcraft.com, but also blizzard.com, battle.net, and diablo.com
- Blizzard only just acquired Diablo3.com a little over a month ago, despite having all of 8+ years to do so until now.
- The Purple Walrus pic is the trademark of artist Michael Dashow who did the majority of the models and animations for Diablo 2.

And a nice montage of related pics (Although the purple Diablo looks a bit shifty):



Mind you...  It's still all speculative.  :P

I am eagerly looking forward to checking the splash page tomorrow to see if it's been updated again.  I mean, that crack at the center grew quite a bit today, so...

[Tooker]

Oh, MAN.  I (as you may guess) was a HUGE fan of Diablo II.  Played it off and on for like 2 years.  I have it installed on a 2 gig USB drive right now (with a no-cd patch, I could plug it into any PC and just play it).

I think at this point, they've borrowed enough elements of Diablo for Warcraft that even if they thought making a WoD game was a good idea, it'd probably be just too samey.

No matter what, you guys either just made or ruined my day, depending on whether this interpretation of events turns out to be correct or not. :)

[daschrier]

Even if it is announced, it won't be out for another 10 years with the way that Blizzard does things.

[Dade]

- The Splash page appears on not just worldofwarcraft.com, but also blizzard.com, battle.net, and diablo.com

Also appears on starcraftghost.com

Still holding out for that one.

Seriously though, I'm with daschrier on this one, who the hell cares? It wont be out for a long fucking time. Longer than I care to think about. By the way, Blizzard, how goes Starcraft II? Oh yeah, no new info in an assfuck while.

[daschrier]

It isn't meant as a bash to Blizzard, BTW, as they generally release pretty stable games, it just takes them a long time to do so.

Many companies push their games out and out and are still released half assed or with a patch before the game hits the shelfs.

[Dade]

Oh i totally got what you meant, and I think it's pretty well known that almost everything Blizzard touches is amazing, albiet....VERY VERY SLOWLY DEVELOPED.

Buy more hamsters or something.

[Masamune]

Blizzard is notorious for never having released a game the -YEAR- they announced they would.  Burning Crusade was no exception, announced for November 06, released January 07. :P

I don't imagine SC2 is coming out end of 08, nor will Wraith of the Lich King be out November of 08.  Always good to be proven wrong, I'm just happy they've (apparently) announced Diablo III.  We all knew they were going to have to do it eventually.  Hopefully it'll be released in less then...2 years?

[Daggerstrike]

Blizzard is notorious for never having released a game the -YEAR- they announced they would.  Burning Crusade was no exception, announced for November 06, released January 07. :P

I don't imagine SC2 is coming out end of 08, nor will Wraith of the Lich King be out November of 08.  Always good to be proven wrong, I'm just happy they've (apparently) announced Diablo III.  We all knew they were going to have to do it eventually.  Hopefully it'll be released in less then...2 years?

They haven't announced it. There are hints...though the latest letter is W...so that doesn't fit.

[Losfer]

Not only does the W not fit, the new rune on the splash page today is the /Protoss symbol/.

;____________;

I don't know now.  The splash page has something from Warcraft, Starcraft, and Diablo on it...  I'm hoping news for each franchise, you know, Lich King is going to apparently have a playable demo at WWI, apparently there was a leak in info and Starcraft II is going to be released around Christmas (Dec 3rd, actually [I hope]), and apparently (word of the day) further leaked info states Diablo III will be announced.

Now obviously, "leaked" info is only so good and is often comparable to "made up" info, so.

...Still, Blizzard have always been excellent in keeping the fans guessing and raging over coming announcements.  Rob Pardo says "everyone" will be really excited with the announcements this weekend.  I hope this means /Blizzard fans/ will be excited and not /just WoW fans/ will be excited.

No offense to WoW and all, I love it, but if all this is just building up to WoW related stuff...  Blizzard is going to be sitting next to Squeenix from now on.

PS -- The Wiki article was deleted this morning.  :(

[Ryos]

No offense to WoW and all, I love it, but if all this is just building up to WoW related stuff...  

Well, WoW 2 would technically be related to WoW and would also fit the whole next-gen MMO deal, but on the other hand I'm not sure how that'd excite everyone. :p