Arena Junkies picked up an interesting tidbit by comparing two different interviews. Rob Pardo, Blizzard's EVP of Game Design, gave an interview to Onlinewelten in which he talks about the next-gen MMO. That interview isn't exactly news on its own. We knew since Diablo III was announced at the WWI that it probably isn't the new MMO, and Pardo confirms that in the interview. "..Diablo 3 isn't an MMO," Pardo says, "So we have another development team."

But what is that new MMO being developed? Some speculate it could be an entirely new property. Well, Paul Sams, Blizzard's Chief Operating Officer, has an interview with Gamasutra that indicates no new IPs are coming soon. "Are we ever going to release a new [franchise]?" Sams says, "I would absolutely say we will at some point. I just don't know when that day will be quite yet."

Okay, so Blizzard's still working on a MMO, but there's no new IP on the horizon. So, what's the next-gen MMO going to be? World of Warcraft 2? World of Starcraft? And if Diablo 3 isn't considered an MMO, then is there a possibility of a World of Diablo? For me, this just means that my hopes of Tauren Marines aren't yet dead.

I'm sure by now you've heard of the strange splash screen that has appeared on Blizzard's major websites, and seen the progression from day 1 to day 2, and read our report on it here at WoW Insider. As expected, a new splash screen has just appeared on Blizzard's main site.

This time, a large chunk of the ice in the middle of the picture seems to have broken away. Unfortunately, we still can't make out much of anything through the ice, though we've already had a tipster or two comment to say that it may be the night sky. If so, does that mean we're inside some sort of icy tomb or cavern looking out? There's also a new rune located in the bottom left hand corner of the breaking ice. The meaning of the new rune is still up in the air. Diabloii.net points out that it looks a lot like a Protoss symbol found on the official Starcraft 2 site.

You can see the image, as well as the newest piece of that strange purple monster image, in our splash screen gallery below.

Gallery: June 2008 splash screen speculation