Have you recently visited the homepage of World of Warcraft developer Blizzard? If the answer is ‘Hell yeah!’ then you may have noticed a minor change to their front page. Well, I say minor, but it’s actually a pretty major change that’s impossible to miss.
Hit the jump for all the speculation.
Right about now you’ll either be going:
‘Ahhh OMG OMG OMG OMG it’s the worldstone from Diablo that’s changed from red to blue due to the events at the end of Diablo 2. Diablo 3 confirmed!’
OR
‘Ahhh OMG OMG OMG OMG Wrath of the Lich King beta is coming soon!’
OR
‘Woop dee do, it’s ice. Plain old cold blue and possibly dirty (and therefore unhygienic) ice. It will be interesting to see what they announce, but I don’t really care either way.’
OR
‘Where am I and how come I’m quoted in this article?’
OR -
Ok we’ll just leave it at those four for now.
You can disregard the last two (they’re just me being hilarious), it’s the first couple that we’re interested in. The internet is in two minds about this image. One half believes it’s signifying the arrival of Diablo 3, and the other half thinks it’s the Wrath of the Lich King beta. If you’re really keen then take a look here for an in-depth analysis, but for those who are just mildly interested, stay here for the facts.
For Diablo 3:
- The ‘ice’ could be the world stone from Diablo 2.
- The runes in the image could be from Diablo 2’s rune system
- If you dig deep into Blizzard’s site a number of interesting numbers present themselves that all point towards the announcement of Diablo 3. Again, this can be seen on WoW Insider.
For Wrath of the Lich King beta:
- The image is called ice2.jpg meaning that it could just be good ol’ ice and not a worldstone.
- Some of the file titles mentioned above could just as easily relate to Northend from WoTLK.
- Blizzard could be trying to trick us into thinking it’s Diablo.
This is the second splash page that Blizzard have put up (the first was ice1.jpg) which leads many to believe that more of the ice will be removed periodically with each new splash page image and the announcement will be revealed behind the ice. Clever. However, not one to be deterred by common speculation, I believe the ice teaser is actually referring to one of Blizzard’s earlier games (they were known as Silicon and Synapse in those days): Rock N’ Roll Racing. Ice often forms on rocks and as it melts the water droplets may race each other down the front of the rock. Rock N’ Roll Racing 2 confirmed.
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10 responses so far ↓
1 Dakkster // Jun 25, 2008 at 9:14 am
rock n’ roll racing kicked ass!
2 David Wang // Jun 25, 2008 at 9:16 am
First link doesn’t work, apparently they don’t allow hotlinking to proxified websites.
I don’t really care about WoW either way, so I wouldn’t be interested even if you did put a working link, lol.
3 Wandelation // Jun 25, 2008 at 9:21 am
Who comes from the Land of the Ice and Snow? The Lost Vikings.
Lost Vikings 3, you heard it here first.
4 Sifer2400 // Jun 25, 2008 at 9:39 am
If you go to there site you can see that the ice has started to crack
5 Eoco // Jun 25, 2008 at 11:20 am
Sorry about this folks. Just so you know I don’t have any form of surf control at my house and so have no need to go through a proxy. We currently have no idea why these links are going through a proxy.
We’re working on getting them fixed.
While were doing that, here are the links that should be there (instead of the proxy):
link 1:
link fro, the word ‘here’ in this sentence ‘then take a look here for an in-depth analysis’ to http://www.wowinsider.com/2008/06/24/blizzards-icy-splash-screen-changes-as-diablo-3-and-wotlk-specu/
link 2:
link from the words ‘rock n roll racing’ in this sentence ‘(they were known as Silicon and Synapse in those days): Rock N’ Roll Racing.’ to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rock_and_roll_racing
6 Eoco // Jun 25, 2008 at 11:31 am
THe links should be up and running now
7 Jolley22 // Jun 25, 2008 at 11:35 am
Looks like it’s Diablo 3 from what IGN makes out http://uk.pc.ign.com/articles/883/883949p1.html
8 Ryan Sorenson // Jun 25, 2008 at 2:01 pm
I’m still hoping its Starcraft Ghost… a boy can dream.
9 Shadowbird // Jun 27, 2008 at 2:00 am
The only thing I see is the “money” crystals from StarCraft. StarCraft II FTW!
10 Blizznews // Jun 27, 2008 at 2:08 am
New icy-picture with spooky eyes!
http://us.media.blizzard.com/232309/_images/ice5.jpg
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