I'd also like to add: Believe it or not, Legendary Pictures has just announced that they are making a movie based on the Diablo series by Blizzard. No word on who will be directing the movie (or writing it or starring in it for that matteR), but if Uwe Boll has any involvement, I say we Diablo fans riot in the streets. If you ask me, the announcement of this movie brings up three big questions: 1) Will this have any effect on when Blizzard will announce the next Diablo game? 2) Will this be a good movie or will it fall under the "video game movie" curse? 3) How will they handle the Secret Cow Level? Let's face it, if the axe-wielding cows aren't somewhere in the movie, it won't be worth watching. UPDATE: Now the Legendary Pictures homepage has been changed. They have removed Diablo from their under development projects. What gives? it was there, along with World of Warcraft.
I'm not dismissing the possibility of d3, but isnt it true that blizzard hasn't announced the release date for WotLK yet? Why couldn't they use this technique to do it? If it is Diablo 3 then the frost effect is very misleading. Unless they are introducing some demon that has, for example, risen from the deep ices of earth, the entire use of such icey colors seems juxtaposed to the very idea of where a demon comes from! Also, you and others' speculation on the connection between the formation of the runes and the demonic pentagram seems to be a sort of decent guess at best. Just don't be so sure of yourself, less you be disappointed if what's revealed is not what you were expecting.
possible reasons for ice: "hell freezing over" fire melting through something is cool the company's name is Blizzard a stretch? perhaps... but i'll stick with my hopes for now
The Ninth Circle is ringed by classical and Biblical giants. The giants are standing either on, or on a ledge above, the ninth circle of Hell, and are visible from the waist up at the ninth circle of the Malebolge. The giant Antaeus lowers Dante and Virgil into the pit that forms the ninth circle of Hell. (Canto XXXI) Traitors, distinguished from the "merely" fraudulent in that their acts involve betraying one in a special relationship to the betrayer, are frozen in a lake of ice known as Cocytus. Each group of traitors is encased in ice to a different depth, ranging from only the waist down to complete immersion. The circle is divided into four concentric zones: (PDog Note: Look at the Blizzard images. Each rune has 4 rings surrounding it) * Round 1: Caïna, named for Cain, is home to traitors to their kindred. The souls here are immersed in the ice up to their necks. (Canto XXXII) * Round 2: Antenora is named for Antenor of Troy, who according to medieval tradition betrayed his city to the Greeks. Traitors to political entities, such as party, city, or country, are located here. Count Ugolino pauses from gnawing on the head of his rival Archbishop Ruggieri to describe how Ruggieri imprisoned and starved him and his children. The souls here are immersed at almost the same level as those in Caïna, except they are unable to bend their necks. (Cantos XXXII and XXXIII) * Round 3: Ptolomæa is probably named for Ptolemy, the captain of Jericho, who invited Simon Maccabaeus and his sons to a banquet and then killed them. Traitors to their guests are punished here. Fra Alberigo explains that sometimes a soul falls here before the time that Atropos (the Fate who cuts the thread of life) should send it. Their bodies on Earth are immediately possessed by a fiend. The souls here are immersed so much that only half of their faces are visible. As they cry, their tears freeze and seal their eyes shut- they are denied even the comfort of tears. (Canto XXXIII) * Round 4: Judecca, named for Judas the Iscariot, Biblical betrayer of Christ, is for traitors to their lords and benefactors. All of the sinners punished within are completely encapsulated in ice, distorted to all conceivable positions. Dante and Virgil, with no one to talk to, quickly move on to the center of hell. Condemned to the very center of hell for committing the ultimate sin (treachery against God) is Satan, who has three faces, one red, one black, and one a pale yellow, each having a mouth that chews on a prominent traitor. Satan himself is represented as a giant, terrifying beast, weeping tears from his six eyes, which mix with the traitors' blood sickeningly. He is waist deep in ice, and beats his six wings as if trying to escape, but the icy wind that emanates only further ensures his imprisonment (as well as that of the others in the ring). The sinners in the mouths of Satan are Brutus and Cassius in the left and right mouths, respectively, who were involved in the assassination of Julius Caesar (an act which, to Dante, represented the destruction of a unified Italy), and Judas Iscariot (the namesake of this zone) in the central, most vicious mouth, who betrayed Jesus. Judas is being administered the most horrifying torture of the three traitors, his head in the mouth of Lucifer, and his back being forever skinned by the claws of Lucifer. (Canto XXXIV) What is seen here is a perverted trinity. Satan is impotent, ignorant, and evil while God can be attributed as the opposite: all powerful, all knowing, and good. The two poets escape by climbing down the ragged fur of Lucifer, passing through the center of the earth, emerging in the other hemisphere just before dawn on Easter Sunday beneath a sky studded with stars.
Yeah, that was my mistake. I think I was thinking of something else when I was looking that up. But the 9th circle of hell has been talked about regarding Diablo 3 for a while now. Not to mention the 4 rings within the 9th circle, and the 4 rings surrounding each rune in the Teaser images.
I haven't heard that take on it. Will Satan be introduced as a fourth prime evil? On another note, when this is all revealed (Sunday I think), how much of our symbolism and insight will prove to be completely coincidental and unintentional?
While all this folklore is certainly in line with the whole icey thing, you have to keep in mind that the Diablo series has always portrayed the center of hell (as well as it's demonic peripheries) as a place dominated by fire, brimstone, heat, and all that crap. I think it would be not only strange, but desperately unoriginal to see Blizzard simply redo the epicentral inscapes of the series (namely Hell) simply according to the folklore and/mythology of another culture. In other words, are you saying that they are just going to take Hell and make it icey now instead or firey, or parts of it? That would seem utterly boring, even if it is just a small piece of the supposed new series.
Well, you also need to note that the Worldstone has been destroyed, thus resulting in unprecedented changes in just about anything and everything.
holy god check this out. If someone actually did manage to hack it and find the remaining images I think we won't have to worry about any ice world... EDIT: apparently it's also already been proven fake... I suppose we'll just have to wait and see.
I started reading Dante's inferno this summer. Its a good book for the timing I see. Maybe I have some type of ESP?
Could be a different level of hell I think I'm just going to wait and not make any more guesses But it could be that someone was encased in ice and is melting like I and others have said earlier
Yea that makes the most sense but if there is a face behind the ice maybe instead of looking out, to the stars, we are looking in, to a hole where someone has been trapped. Just a different perspective to put on things
If this is Wrath of the Lich King I will be so disappointed. Just doesn't make sense to go through such great lengths to announce/give the release date of a game everyone knows about.
I have to say we should forget the issue until something further happens, because talking about it only makes me more apprehensive.