@Rohan: What would happen if HL3 were to hit markets tomorrow? I will go buy it!
Well, as allwyndlima said, those that buy it will do so, and those that wont - wont. As simple as that. Plus, either you're with Valve or VUG or Milestone Interactive, or you are going to sponsor a copy for all of us here, I dont know which.
So you see, there's not much of a point to this.
@Everyone: Well, no point in locking/deleting this thread, so what we might very well do is to turn it into a HL3 speculation thread and use it for a genuinely good purpose. Wotsay? I'll start.
First off, when do you think HL3 will even be announced "officially"? I mean, come on, its not like Valve has any other game in its repertoire, and its not that much of a secret that they dont have anything else to work on except HL3, considering how HL2 had a cliffhanger ending. Would it hurt so much to say that they are indeed working on HL3, but cant give out approximate release dates?
Plus, I dont know if Valve is currently working on anything else except the ATI levels, although I hope for God' sakes that the stories in the single-player episodic contents does not "augment" the HL storyline, because if it did, then millions are gonna get cheated out of understanding the real story, just like how people were cheated out of the real story of the Matrix trilogy because they couldn't see The Animatrix or play Enter The Matrix. Not everyone can afford to jump to an X800 just to get the ATI levels.
Next up, the story itself. Well, HL2 had a mother of a cliifhanger ending that left me going "Wha? Who? Whatthe...? AARGH!" No boss monster, not one. I was expecting to at least go head to head with the Combine Advisor. I wonder if he turns out to be a monster in HL3, apart from the weird things you see while you're moving up the Combine Citadel in "Our Benefactors" Also having said, one of the Vortigaunt's comments are interesting:
"For once the lesser master lay defeated. We knew that the greater must also fall in time."
Its obvious that the Combine were enslaving the Xen races with the effect of the chains and shackles on the Vortigaunts and on Nihilanth (the lesser master, who was also bound to Combine slavery) So, where would the events of HL3 unfold? On Earth? Well, the Combine grip on the planet has been broken and there will just be random civil wars breaking out here and there among the Cities. So does that mean Gordon Freeman would travel to the Combine homeworld to deal with the threat directly? Or would he waste time on Earth helping the rebels and travelling from City to City looking for a teleporter that would transport him to the Combine home planet, now that he destroyed the Dark Energy portal in HL2. What happens to Dog, Dr. Issac Kleiner, Dr. Eli Vance, Dr. Judith Mossman, Barney Calhoun, Col. Odessa Cabbage and most importantly, Alyx Vance? Ideas, anyone?