Puzzle/ARG in the 2.5 patch notes

Blizzard added an ARG (Alternate Reality Game) / Puzzle in the 2.5 patch notes. If you look at end there is written:

P.S. We were flipping through the old Diablo II manual and found this confounding inscription. . .what does it all mean?

and a picture:


What do you think about it?

Gems stacking!

Solution for the text and the next step:

Spoiler

Link to the google spreadsheet were all the text from the gem numbers is put together.

Where is the active puzzle solving going on? Just looking at this image, there's all sorts of stuff coming to mind, and while I doubt I'm in any place to solve any part of this, I would love to see the real solution unfold.

For example, there seems to be a lot of Act 3 stuff here. A Black Book, like

Lam Esen's Tome. 4 Canopic Jars, which hold organs, such as perhaps the 4 pieces of Khalim we collect during act 3 (eye, brain, heart, will). The little statue, which could be the Jade Figurine. There's the text about the burning red gem, which could be the compelling orb, though I kinda doubt that. The

Dagger could be

The Gidbinn. The text on the coins says "Evil Remains" in Latin as far as I can tell. Not a Latin scholar, so I could be misreading it.

Impressive and great work, summarizing the Lore of D1 D2 D2Lod DImmo D3 D3RoS... and I suppose preparing the one of D4 !

That's a great easter egg ! (But probably no link to Stackable gems unfortunately)

Thinking out loud, this "The Gem All Seeing" bit came from the wall of text. That seems like a pretty good clue. Not sure if there's more to find in the text or not.

So far, after each step, there's been something in the original image to reference to lead us to the next step. Cipher needed the word resurrected from the chat gem coin, which brought us to the chat gem itself, then to the Diablo manual.

There's a ton more stuff in that image that we haven't used yet. My feeling is that its time to combine "The Gem All Seeing" with the image. There's 2 other gems in the image, the SoJ and the eyes of the little dog-monster statue. Eyes are used to see, so the dog-statue may be relevant. The dog-monster statue reminds me of a Komainu, guardians of shrines or something like that, but I can't think of any shrines that would be relevant here. In the wall of text, 'gem' was also used to refer to a character, but I can't think of any character I'd describe as "All Seeing" that are also relevantly connected to Diablo 2. Maybe Trang-Oul? As for the SoJ, they're too valuable for me to want to monkey around with, and it would be pretty crappy of Bliz to lock a cool puzzle like this behind a semi-valuable item that many casuals interested in this puzzle probably don't have.

Has anyone cubed all the p gems, soj and

Baal’s eye? (Or whichever eye is from the

Pandemonium Event)

Studying the Image:

Things we have used:
The text on the journal.
The word "Resurrected" on the Gem-Coin
The Chat gem of the gem-coin
The Diablo 2 Manual

Things we have not used and clearly know what they are:

Horadric Cube
Diablo (in his Sanctuary)

Stone of Jordan Ring
Lord of Destruction cover art (unless we consider that used with the manual).

Things we have not used and are not sure what they are:
Dark lock
2 silver keys (not the 3 keys used in

Pandemonium Event, but 2. Maybe talking about 2 parts of

The Horadric Staff used to open

Tal Rasha's Chamber and

Duriel?)
"???? - 2021" on the gem-coin, with 2021 being D2:R's release year.
"Keep the core" on the gem-coin
8 count of Diablo/

Dark Wanderer faced coins with "Malum Superest," or "Evil Remains" written 4 times per coin, 32 times total.
Pentagram drawing on journal
4 Canopic Jars (not 3 like the organs used in

Pandemonium Event, perhaps the 4 parts used in

Khalim's Will?)
Candlestick (Or whatever that is?)
Leather Bag
Dog-monster statue with red gem eyes and a

Diamond on his forehead/

Crown

Dagger
Abacus
Dark Tome (Perhaps Black Book of

Lam Esen's Tome, or moldy tome from act 1?)

How about

Iron Golem skill?
There is a change when Iron Golems persist between games if created by

Metalgrid.

mockingbirdreal wrote: 2 years ago

How about

Iron Golem skill?
There is a change when Iron Golems persist between games if created by

Metalgrid.

I'm somewhat skeptical of that, but who knows. For this to be a fair puzzle for the community, I still think it needs to be completable by anyone with any character, hence why the stages so far have been out of game or using just the lobby. Needing a necro or IG item from

Metalgrid would be a specific gate requirement that would break that. Now, I could totally be wrong about this, but that's my intuition. I have been running around with my necro though just looking for things in the image, and he has an IG, so maybe I'll stumble on something.

I haven't watched the video. Has anyone remarked about the stamp on the left key? It's upside down and mirrored, but the opposite face should show "22-", not sure what the dash is.

Couldn't simply it be some advertisement for the Diablo Prime Evil collector pack ?

Necrarch wrote: 2 years ago

Couldn't simply it be some advertisement for the Diablo Prime Evil collector pack ?

Unlikely, if they were trying to sell stuff, I don't think they'd make a mystery of it.

Some of the props remind me of d3 cinematics and in-game cut scenes. Maybe some kind of cross-game event?