Friday, June 27, 2008

Blizzard Teaser Day 5: A Sign of Things to Come?

Quick Summary: The 5th day Rune refers to the Lost Vikings franchise, as possibly do the 'Lost' numbers. Two eyes have been reinforced at the centre of the image, and given the colour and glow effect they most resemble the eyes of the Lich King Arthas. The Tiled image has been revealed to show an 'Evil Penguin', and the numbers on the Tiled Images do match up with the 'Lost' number sequence. My gut instinct is it's a 'Wrath of the Lich King' announcement of some kind. Nothing we've seen so far provides any concrete evidence that Diablo 3 is going to be announced. Still, we live in hope.

UPDATE: Okay, I'm being an idiot and not really thinking things through, it is the Lost numbers, but those numbers don't spell out any 'TYRAEL IS GONE'-style phrase from Yesterday's theory due to the lack of an 'e'.

Morning all, lets get down to business. Todays Splash Screen is ice5.jpg:



Damn. Well they are definitely a pair of eyes, I'm not sure which eyes they match the best though (Arthas/The Lich King?), more on that later. Ice5.jpg has the following rune:



A Viking Compass Perhaps (hat tip Flowz0r in comments).



Implying it's to do with the Lost Vikings franchise, and the 4th rune is another Franchise. One of the theories floating around is that it relates to Pax Imperia: Eminent Domain because that was a space-based RTS which matched the planetary motif. However Blizzard only worked on that game, not the original, and sold the rights to THQ before it was released (the game was eventually developed by another software house). Unless the original authors are now working for Blizzard I don't find that a credible theory, so the meaning of the 4th Rune is effectively still up for grabs.

The location of the rune gives credence to all those guys and gals who wanted the rune arrangement to be a pentagram... it is one, but only very loosly. All the other Runes are much clearer now, and we can see that the one from the first day is in fact the top-most rune from Frostmourne.



Okay, missed that. There are two words today, from the master CSS files: 'harbinger' and 'evilpenguin'; and two associated 'hidden image tiles: 08.jpg and 42.jpg. Yay for theories: 08.jpg does fit the Lost number sequence... and 42 does also. Neither of these number+word combinations would provide the necessary 'E' for spelling out Tyrael however, never mind any message for him, so that specific conjecture theory is out the window too.

As for who the 'Harbinger' might be: "You are the harbinger of our return, Diablo!" (the words of Mephisto, Video is the Diablo 2 Act IV Cinematic)




/rampant fanboy-ism.


Finally, the hidden image's tiles, constructed together look like the following:



Yep, that's one evil looking penguin. First Question... who's Artists' Signature is that?

Second Question: Whose are those Eyes? My Gut instinct is the Lich King, making this an announcement concerning Wrath of the Lich King, but is the pentagram Rune formation significant?

Third Question: What does the last unknown Rune, the 4th Rune which looks like a planetary system, represent?


EDIT1: Thanks to Anonymous in comments, here is an image overlaying a Diablo drawn by one of the Suns of the Storm and the current status of the splash screen image done by a member of Diablo.leforum.eu:



As always with overlays I'm quite sceptical, but it is well worth mentioning.

28 comments:

Anonymous 27/06/2008, 08:22  

You missed something..
scroll down the css file.

Unknown 27/06/2008, 08:28  

Anonymous, you're great xD so much for the valenzetti theory... Nothing has to do with Lost!

Now what context can we place the penguin in? Cold? Well, Northrend is cold, Northrend is where the Lich King is situated and the eyes look alot like the Lich King's...

I think the Diablo 3 theory isn't fitting right anymore.

Anyone worked out the riddle of Tyrael yet?

Suicidal Zebra 27/06/2008, 08:37  

Thanks very much anonymous, I'm just in the process of editing the post.

It seems to me that it looks most like the eyes of the Lich King, but that may partially be due to the everything being a shade of blue.

Anonymous 27/06/2008, 08:37  

its not 43, like u mentioned.
go back to the _images site and go for 42!!!
picture is finished already!

Anonymous 27/06/2008, 08:40  

already opened all peice

http://us.media.blizzard.com/232309/_images/08.jpg
http://us.media.blizzard.com/232309/_images/42.jpg


It is LOST :)

Renaud S 27/06/2008, 08:51  

and 42 fit with the LOST Number theory ;-)

Anonymous 27/06/2008, 08:54  
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Anonymous 27/06/2008, 08:54  

42 is the last number in the Lost theory, bro. The numbers 4, 8, 15, 16, 23 and 42 appear throughout the series, both in sequence and individually. Excellent find too btw, I'm at work and you're the only one who has the updated splash image :)

Anonymous 27/06/2008, 08:56  

It's not the lich king.
Check the Lich King page on the website.
The bottom of the helm isn't correct.
Just check it closely

Unknown 27/06/2008, 09:00  

if you continue the anagram from the number theory, the words can be "lair horny pit". All of them sound a little devilish/evil!


BUT!
The new rune looks a bit like a Viking compass:
http://brentberryarts.com/bjork_art/4a697960.jpg

Which may be a reference to Lost Vikings.

This suggests something about Lost vikings... Lost number theory + viking compass...?

Anonymous 27/06/2008, 09:01  

Maybe, Those eyes are "Zealot"!!!

aren't those?

Anonymous 27/06/2008, 09:08  

They sort of look like that one Protoss woman artwork piece blizzard put up awhile ago.

http://starcraft2.com/art.xml?s=52

Anonymous 27/06/2008, 09:08  

If you look at the eyes, there is that notch between them, as if something is scrunching his eyes together in a menacing way.... it reminds me of Diablo, however I can't find a good image to prove it... probably just the massive "OH MY GOD DIABLO 3 IS HERE" feeling, but maybe not.

confirmation from anyone on my thoughts?

Anonymous 27/06/2008, 09:11  

Numbers of Lost

Anonymous 27/06/2008, 09:11  

Since I'm at work, I can't give you the link to the image that I'll be referring to, but here goes.

I believe the link is something like https://battle.net/images/

If thats not it, I don't recall it. I picked it up though off of some forums, and the actual page that i'm referring to has a very morbid picture looking of a diablo-esque skull with the numbers 10-17-05 or 10-07-05 (I don't remember which.)

Someone had laid that picture and made it transparent with the day 4 splash image and it was an absolute perfect fit. Not just because of the eyes, but because of the way the ice was breaking/retracting/melting around the horns. I hope that's the link so you can see what I mean.

Renaud S 27/06/2008, 09:15  

About the pentagram, this is bullshit. Tomorow, we will have a new rune, with the new splash screen so...

Suicidal Zebra 27/06/2008, 09:18  

Great Stuff Flowz0r!

Travis: Unfortunately a huge number of Blizzard Imagery uses eyes which are roughly that shape. The most we have to go on is the flame effect going outwards from the eyes, and that's seen on the Lich King , and in the odd shot of Diablo. The 'Cold' imagery of the Splash images is much more indicative of Wrath of the Lich King than Diablo III

Anonymous 27/06/2008, 09:32  

Here is a work of the splash screen 5 and a recent artwork of Diablo from sonsothestorm artists :

http://img24.xooimage.com/files/9/4/5/000kiki-46b3b9.jpg

Author of the work did say that it did not rearrange anything : no resize, or anything like that... it matches perfectly.

Source : http://diablo.leforum.eu/t1126-Blizzard-Wolrdwide-Invitational-2008-Paris.htm?start=150
(french forum)

Anonymous 27/06/2008, 09:37  

From here:
http://suicidalzebra.blogspot.com/2008/06/blizzard-teaser-day-3-they-just-keep.html

About edit2, it isn't a fake... if you go to the official blizzard WWI site, and look at their news articles... one about the live streams has you DL a octo-something player, and when you run it to check if it works, that image shows up.

Confirm here:
http://eu.blizzard.com/wwi08/streams.xml

DIABLO 3 FUCK YEAH! (i hope)

|Random|

Renaud S 27/06/2008, 09:55  

WTH with the length and width of the screen :
Icy5 : 1404px × 962px
Icy4 : 1230px × 874px
Icy3 : 1010px × 725px
Icy2 : 1075px × 705px
Icy1 : 1077px × 651px

SO ? :D

Anonymous 27/06/2008, 10:30  

K guys. This is a little off the wall.

Wikipedia says that Blizzard is working on a project called 'Project Hydra' (Purely Speculation). Someone overheard a conversation between a 2 Blizzard employees and one asked the other what he was working on. He replied,"Hydra."

That's all they know.

the 4th rune appears to be a planet with 3 moons.

Which planet has three moons?
Pluto.
One of them happens to be named 'Hydra'.
Perhaps the 4th rune is a reference to the secret 'Project Hydra'

Who knows?

Happy Hunting.

:] -James L

Unknown 27/06/2008, 10:48  

the rune can be cover of a canceled game Pax Imperia.

http://www.mobygames.com/game/pax-imperia-eminent-domain/cover-art/gameCoverId,9058/

Unknown 27/06/2008, 10:49  

the 4the rune

Anonymous 27/06/2008, 11:47  

If I had to theorize what we're seeing from a marketing perspective:

First, try to set aside all our collective knowledge up to this point and look at the splash pages from the perspective of your Average Gamer Dude.

Would an average player have, by himself, noted the significance of the runes, the Lost numbers, or anything to that effect? No, all he'd see would be the splash page, that of progressively shattering ice.

Average Gamer Dude (AGD) is not without some exposure to WoW, so obviously would know about Wrath of the Lich King. Ice = Cold = Northred = Lich King, so AGD thinks, 'Cool, they are previewing Wrath!'

Very straight-forward, very basic, very logical. But maybe it's a trap.

It's almost like a classic suspense sequence from a movie. You build up your audience to expect one outcome but shock them with another. So AGD and all his buddies are waiting around, seeing the ice shatter, now they see eyes, now the eyes are glowing bright blue, and tomorrow they expect to see the face in the blizzard.

They expect to see Arthas.

Imagine the surprise if it was something else entirely? The hype alone would be great viral marketing.

Anonymous 27/06/2008, 16:29  

I apologize for the additional post, but something else occurred to me. If you haven't guessed I'm solidly in the camp hoping they'll announce D3, so here's some more rampant speculation.

I keep wondering what the significance of these runes are. Sure, they seem to point to games from all of Blizzard's franchises, but why runes?

Maybe they're not runes, but seals, and they've been revealed one after another for the last week.

It's kind of like how the player breaks the various seals in Act IV to release Diablo.

I tried overlaying th e common picture of the Lich King onto today's teaser. The eyes, particularly the blue glow, isn't quite the same, but more importantly there seems to be a misfit between Arthas' helmet and the vague outline we're seeing highlighted by the eye flares. Seems to fit more with the overlay of big D that the french boards did...

Anonymous 28/06/2008, 08:24  

well ive just seen the image for day 6, june 28th. annnd...well the first thing that came to my mind was perhaps the new hybrid race for SC2? and this new image is starting to look more and more starcrafty. also, theres a couple images of zerg-looking type creatures scatted throughout the ice. Theyre very hard to see though.
GO NEW RACE FOR SC2!!

Anonymous 28/06/2008, 09:00  

VENTRILLO CHAT CONCERNING THIS UPDATE.

NAME: v32.darkstarllc.com

PORT: 4288

Suicidal Zebra 28/06/2008, 09:02  

Advertising Spam?

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