Did you see the Diablo 3 trailers and think the artistry and graphics just weren't what you wanted?  So did a lot of other people, and in moments a petition was created!

The main objective of this petition is to show Blizzard that there's a significant number of players that dont agree with the current art style of the game, with this petition we hope to make Blizzard ear our voices, our opinions and our suggestions and we seriously want some changes in the artistic direction of the game so it could be more coherent and familiar with the Diablo universe.

At time of posting the petition already had 26,151 signatures, but yesterday lead producer Keith Lee talked to MTV Multiplayer and defended the decisions.

“What we also tried to do is create very clean textures so that you can really focus. It’s a stylized feel and in that sense, it’s very sort of a Blizzard philosophy. It’s just really pushing the envelope in terms of the visuals so that everyone is excited about how everything looks. We think that ‘Diablo III’ is going to be better in so many different ways. We’re just building and improving upon the the first and second ‘Diablo’ games.”

I also asked Lee about how and when the dev team will take fan feedback into account. He wouldn’t go into specifics, but said:

“We’re very involved, because everyone’s very passionate about our games. Blizzard employees, we spend a lot of time actually iterating on [the game], and so in terms of the next phase, what we’ll try to do is a proof on concept on lot of different gameplay aspects. And we really want to get as much feedback as possible so that we can improve on the game and ensure that we meet Blizzard quality for our fans and for ourselves as players.”

So whether you agree or not, it's certainly a hot topic!

In a move that shocks no one after the week of splash pages and months of rumors Blizzard has announced Diablo III! 

Two decades have passed since the demonic denizens, Diablo, Mephisto, and Baal, wandered the world of Sanctuary in a vicious rampage to shackle humanity into unholy slavery. Yet for those who battled the Prime Evils directly, the memory fades slowly and the wounds of the soul still burn.

There's 60 screen shots, a 20 minute game play video, and a cinematic teaser that will knock your sox off, but requires an age verifier to watch.  Multi-player coop mode through Battle.net is of course planned!

As with all of Blizzard's products, no release date, but everyone knows they'll only release when it's good and done!

Ladies and Gentleman, I give you the wait from hell.  Literally.

Oki, it doesn't really say that, but Diablofans has completed the hidden picture from the CSS (cascading style sheet) inside Blizzard's spash screen, and it truly is an evil looking penguin!

Today's splash screen brings us no closer to truly knowing what Blizzard is trying to tell us. Not surprising, otherwise they'd have just told us to wait until the announcement this weekend at the WWI.

Is it a protoss, is it Arthas, or do we have a killer penguin about to invade Norrath?! Diablofans has their opinion, and honestly, who can argue with Medievaldragon!?

Tundra: 04
Harbinger: 08
Cavern: 15
Cold: 16
Icy: 23
EvilPenguin: 42
[D, H, O, P, W, ?]

That leaves us with 4, 8, 15, 16, 23, 42.
Look familiar? They are the LOST numbers.
You can only wonder why Blizzard chose these numbers.

We have 5 days of crazy clues that no one can decipher for sure, so we'll just have to wait, and wonder, and I'm going to go remove that image from my desktop because it's giving me nightmares! Folks are arriving in Paris by the plane load, and our own team of folks are there as well, so as soon as the announcement is made we'll have the info for you!

Blizzard has changed their splash screen once again today! Saturday launches this year's Blizzard's Worldwide Invitational, giving us one more day of changes. Unless of course someone at Blizzard got left home to mind the store, in which case, we never know what could happen! As always, Diablofans has possible answers!

As for the runes on the icy image the previous were: the World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King's Frostmourne rune, followed by the Hel Rune from Diablo II, and the protoss Alkilae tribe symbol from Starcraft II. Today's rune seems like a solar system. This is not a symbol you see often in a Blizzard game. The only thing that it resembles is an Arcane Sanctum from Warcraft III.

Otherwise it can be interpreted as three franchises and a new franchise at the center (4 orbs). Or Starcraft Galaxy? Those staring eyes in the splash page look a lot like a Dark Archon -- and if you have been reading Starcraft: The Dark Templar pocket book you will know that Ulrezaj the Dark Archon has returned to Aiur.

They go on to talk about the The Valenzetti Equation, in a very weird version of NotPron!

In more WWI news *insert another World War One joke here* Blizzard will be streaming the opening and closing ceremonies as well as some of the tourneys and concerts, so don't miss out!

The Blizzard splash screen has been updated once again, and the possibility of it being a direct hint (which Blizzard isn't famous for) for Diablo 3 is growing faint.

Diablofans had this to say:

The new hidden image shown in the CSS file is now looking like a penguin. I merged the three images. The mystery image today was titled 23.jpg -- in the alphabet that corresponds to the letter "W". Now we were trailed off completely. The previous sequences were interpreted as a D, an I and an O from Diablo. A letter W wouldn't make sense with only three days left. Unless it meant World of Diablo Online, but two letters or three remain to be released probably. Could the numbers instead refer to Diablo runes? There is a mysterious rune combination in Diablo II patch 1.11 that has not been discovered.

Blizzard Vice President of Design, Rob Pardo, told Games Industry Biz this:

"So you want me to announce the game before our announcement?" he said. "No offense, but I think there's like 300 people here, and I'll be ripped apart by 8000 people there [at the Invitational] if I pre-announce it - but it's going to be really exciting. I think everybody here will be really excited about the announcement."

Little industry birds are running around chirping "It's not what everyone thinks it is", but to be honest, Blizzard could go anywhere with this and we'd all love it, because it's Blizzard! And even as we doubt the Diablo 3 announcement, VideoGaming24/7 has this:

Speaking under conditions of anonymity, a senior UK development source has claimed today that the Blizzard Worldwide Invitational game announcement Rob Pardo alluded to in Paris this morning is definitely Diablo III.

A second, highly-placed European source has also just told us that they are “sure” that Diablo III will be revealed on Saturday afternoon at the event.

If true, the internet will snap. Blizzard’s been teasing all week on the game and speculation, to say the least, is running hot.

Only 2 days to go until the WWI and the end of specualtion with the official announcement!!

Following yesterday's story regarding the Blizzard splash screen comes a change in the cracks of ice! Today's splash screen shows cracks in the ice that show circular symbols, and the passionate folks at Diablo Fans have some idea as to why!

Another interesting fact is the URL: [URL="http://us.media.blizzard.com/232309/_images/ice1.jpg"]http://us.media.blizzard.com/232309/_images/ice1.jpg[/URL]

Why 232309? If we assume that the numbers correspond to the letters in the alphabet we get 232309=WWI ... ring a bell? :-) World Wide Invitational
23 = W
23 = W
09 = I
Anyway the "hidden" picture is called 04.jpg. ([URL="http://us.media.blizzard.com/232309/_images/04.jpg"]http://us.media.blizzard.com/232309/_images/04.jpg[/URL])
My guess is that tomorrow we'll see a picture called 09.jpg, then on wednesday 01.jpg ....

There's more to this theory, so read on to find out the whole story, and info on how X-Fire leaked info!

Have you seen the new, almost something splash screen over at Blizzard.com? If you're familiar at all with the history of Blizzard you'll know that this type of feature is how new projects or announcements  are normally made.

Keep an eye out for what shows up there soon! It could be anything at all from the talented and incredible people over there! If it turns out to be just a new redesign though, I'll be very disappointed!