Splash Page Day 5 and a 1/2

[Aranock]

So they updated the page at midnight, 2 hours and 45 minutes before the event.

The new picture is entitled ice5andhalf, which is the same picture on the main page.

The runes now all appear to be glowing glyphs, supporting the theory they are all activated and ready to release Diablo similar to that of act4.

The face has by far more detail, and it is quite clear this is not Arthas. I would say there are too many lines and angry details to support it being anything Starcraft (Tassadar has a much smoother visage), therefore it's gotta be big red.

There also appears to be a hand in the bottom right corner.

And finally, there is a winking smiley face on the top of the ice which really angers me. I want to shoot that thing in his happy little face and watch him bleed! Cruelty!

Edit: Friend of mine also just pointed out that there appears to be a red tint around the shattered ice, there appears to be a demon-slit nose forming, and if you notice his forehead is still in shadows at this point. Soulstone 101 :thumbup:

[Zarniwoop]

It's not the same. On the right side you can see the curve of a horn. They look like ram's horns.

Either that or an incredibly dull axe. But, I will bet you that that is a huge rack of horns.

[Cwicseolfor]

I think as Joschka said, they'll release another splash page in a few hours when it's announced at WWI.

[Pegleg]

I hope to GOD this doesn't mean that we have to wait until Sunday for them to announce it. Do they not understand the lack of sleep we are getting...or not getting??

[Flux]

The 6th splash image is online. ice5andahalf.jpg by name. The runes are now glowing, a ;) rune has been added to let us know it's all a happy fun joke, and the face in the middle is clearer and more menacing, with glowing, smoking eyes and a bony brow ridge.


http://www.diabloii.net/gallery/data/545/medium/ice5-5.jpg (http://www.diabloii.net/gallery/showphoto.php?photo=526&cat=545)

The new winking rune:

http://www.diabloii.net/gallery/data/545/ice5-5-wink.jpg (http://www.diabloii.net/gallery/showphoto.php?photo=528&cat=545)

A closeup of the "face".

http://www.diabloii.net/gallery/data/545/ice5-5-closeup.jpg (http://www.diabloii.net/gallery/showphoto.php?photo=527&cat=545)

Can anyone make out the shape to the lower/right of the face? Looks like a narrow triangle; a church steeple, an old wizard in robes... can't tell. Magnified it's just pixelly and indecipherable.

On the whole thing, I think it's a clear Diablo reference. The face could be Diablo or any other skull-like bony demon type, or even a Protoss, but look at the runes? It's the Chaos Sanctuary! 5 seals that must be activated, and when they glow Diablo appears in the middle. there's even a winky face to let us in on the joke.

As for the runes, they were over analyzed. The first 3 were references to the 3 blizzard gameworlds, the 4th showed them all orbiting at once (3 new games, one in each world at WWI), and the 5th represents Blizzard itself. And now they're activating, which makes Diablo appear. Boom!

Also, as was pointed out in the news thread; where else in Diablo do we see 5 objects around a central glowing point?

http://www.diabloii.net/gallery/data/545/medium/field-of-stones.jpg

[Cwicseolfor]

It doesn't look like a horn curling round to me. It looks like he's holding up his claw hand and with an open palm and that's one of his claws.

It's totally Diablo.

But how much more bad arse was he here:
http://www.planetdiablo.com/incandescence/images/screen-diablo2.jpg

That's actually D1 Diablo in a D2 mod, but the point is, he's meaner there.

[Aranock]

Also notice how his eyebrows extend much farther out from his face forming a very sinister 'V'

[Azures]

he'll look plenty mean in current gfx lol.

[raleigh_565656]

Looks like one of Diablos horns. They do curve alot or have in the other games so thats what I see.

[derek39]

OMG im soooooo happy right now i got the live feed on right now waiting for it to start playing already! we should all get some kind of instant chat thing going on before it starts. maybe the mods will throw us one? like a shout box maybe? idk but theres no way its not diablo AHHH EEEEE WOOO diablo 3 here we come!

[hhhrobi]

when will the live feed start?(shouldn't it have started already?)

[Azures]

They're looking for a 3d environment artist lol.

Looking at all the job listings they have up for "next-gen mmo" this game may very well be World of Diablo lol.

Hell, that's fine too.

[Glaurung]

my idea of what it loo like :)
http://img254.imageshack.us/img254/7558/ice5andahalfhornsnv6.jpg

[Cwicseolfor]

What do the letters next to the runes say? P, Y, N? P, H, U?

http://img57.imageshack.us/img57/5466/ice5andahalfinvertedbh2.jpg

[hhhrobi]

to me it looks like either a spyke from his shoulder or just some ice.

[Aranock]

I personally think it's one of his fingers as well, but hell, either way it's some form of claw/bone/horn!!

[mouseman]

Funky. It's not a "squint-your-eyes-and-tilt-your-head-to-the-left" Diablo, it's as close to a plain Diablo it can be. Five seals lighting up prior to Diablo's emerge - it's not going to be any clearer than this.

And on the side note, the face has become more vague. I think that it looked like a night elf with those long eyebrows and frostmourne rune as an eye, but it seems to be fading away, so that's definetely one more good sign.

[stillman]

Flux is right. Though I have a different explanation for one of the runes AND the smiley face. I'll post part of what I had on another thread:

I don't play the other Blizzard games, but I'm assuming they don't have ram skulls on the box. How can this possibly be anything other than Diablo?

The runes are even glowing, just like the seals glow in act 4 when you activate them. The seal theory was correct. The pentegram theory is likely also correct. One of the Diablo games has on either the box or the instruction booklet a picture of Diablo's big face with the horns, ears, etc pointing to the 5 points of a pentegram which is drawn in encircling the face. And there are runes etched into the pentegram. The latest image is as Diabloish as it gets.

The reason they showed runes from other games is for the following reason:
The hel rune says "We made Diablo 2, LoD".
The rune from Starcraft is saying "We also gave you Starcraft"
The plantary rune from the less popular game adds to the story: "We made that game too..." (note: I don't think it represents the other games, as someone posted a Blizzard cover showing the design on some sci fi game; it looks the same as the planet rune, except with the planets slightly rearranged.)
The rune from WoW or w/e represents their making of WoW.
And the final rune, top and center where a title would go, is saying "This is from our new game, here it is, it is our most recent work, and it will surpass all these other games, it will complete them, it completes the circle of games we have made for you, it fills the void." As the great Shakespear wrote, "the wheel hath come full circle". The newest rune shown completes the circle/pentegram.

And, you can clearly see a glowing cross in the image. It has been roated slightly into the page. It's a holy cross.

It's Diablo.

I forgot to mention the smiley face: It's winking for positive resons, not negative reasons like it's all a joke.

[r3neGaDeh0p3]

I noticed a couple things that nobody has mentioned yet.

Take a look at the nostrils and extremely faint teeth - here's a quick photoshop job. The teeth aren quite as obvious as the horns but the nostrils are definitely there.

First pic is the full thing with a selected area sharpened (just cranked it up as high as I could).
http://img237.imageshack.us/my.php?image=nostrilshornsredfullyu4.jpg

Second pic is just the sharpened area.
http://img105.imageshack.us/my.php?image=nostrilshornsredth3.jpg

Last pic is the full thing with areas of interest circled/labled.
http://img105.imageshack.us/my.php?image=27773015bo2.jpg

Also note the red veins under the ice.

NOTICE: For anyone that isn't clear on what i typed above. I did nothing but sharpen the original image and label the stuff. No recoloring has been done.

EDIT (4:40 AM EST): forgot to say, i threw this up on the blizzard general forums, figured i'd post it here too, enjoy =)

[Flux]

The 2nd sharpened pic makes the horn thing to the lower right clearer, and I think it's the tip of a curling ram's horn. can't see the matching one on the left since it's behind the bright ice.

http://img105.imageshack.us/img105/7759/nostrilshornsredth3.jpg

[Flux]

It's totally Diablo.

But how much more bad arse was he here:
http://www.planetdiablo.com/incandescence/images/screen-diablo2.jpg

Bit of inside trivia: Bliz north artist Michio Okama (sp, but I'm in a hurry) designed Diablo in D2, and he told me (personally, at e3 one year) that his primary model for it was... godzilla. In the Godzilla 2000 movie remake (that sucked so hard). Hence the quadrupedal style running, more reptilian format.

[Zarniwoop]

YAY flux agrees with me!

[Azures]

so 1 hr left?

[sirroman]

I'm going to repeat here what I posted in the news.

"They are having fun with our Hype. Because they are smart and know that we will ONLY know what it is in the WWI. There's hints, but there is no true answer. But let me suppose more. ^^

WHY 5 and a half? That's because it's not a major step to the desired end, which would come, then, in "ice6".

So, we are talking about the objective X (new game) that needs FIVE actions (5 images) before it, but even with those 5 we need a small "animation", the "5,5".

IN WHAT of all three universes we find something that need EXACTLY those steps? Diablo!

1: Tristam: 5 stones must be pressed and we must wait 'till the lightnings strike. Cain in a cage was waiting to be rescued.

2: Diablo's Lair: 5 Runes that must be pressed and we must wait 'till they glow and release Diablo. Diablo was waiting to be summoned.

1 show one hero and 2 show one villain, both could do "nothing" (well, in game after all) until we "released" them. They were HELD, TRAPPED.

Frozen.

Maybe the little emoticon is the real "teaser", showing that "all we searched", (all we tried to find/release/understand within those images) will be in WWI?

If you are a Starcraft fan, there will be SC2.
If you are a Warcraft fan, there will be WotLK.
But, if you are a Diablo fan... Do I really need to say anything?

Sorry about the long comment."

[mooxhns]

Derek, you are averaging 43 posts per day. Cool it or you are going to have a heart attack.

[r3neGaDeh0p3]

Somebody over at Wowinsider said that they couldn't see the teeth so I went back and tried to make them stand out more. I just ended up resharpening it and it turned out that you can see the teeth/mouth better and the second sharpen reveals a full circular left nostril.

First one is a before shot, second is just the sharpened mouth, last one is the whole nostril/mouth area.

http://img246.imageshack.us/img246/1745/teethbeforeeo8.jpghttp://img72.imageshack.us/img72/9425/teethafterls2.jpghttp://img501.imageshack.us/img501/1781/teethafter2mh7.jpg

The problem with the mouth is that it's easy to lose in the smoke. Heck, it might actually just be smoke, but the outline seems too "teethy" to me for it to be anything else.

[Cwicseolfor]

Bit of inside trivia: Bliz north artist Michio Okama (sp, but I'm in a hurry) designed Diablo in D2, and he told me (personally, at e3 one year) that his primary model for it was... godzilla. In the Godzilla 2000 movie remake (that sucked so hard). Hence the quadrupedal style running, more reptilian format.

Interesting. The more I think about it, I think his D2 version's probably more suitable. They're both pretty awesome though.

Renegade: Hmmm not seeing it really. What're the chances it's not full Diablo at all? Remember he wasn't fully formed at the start of Diablo 2.

[r3neGaDeh0p3]

could be.

still fun to speculate tho =)

hopefully we'll find out when we get to the true 6th version and not just 5 and 1/2