As I said, you’re technically correct from a pedantic and literal point of view. A lie requires the “intent to deceive,” though this is not always a negative thing as you implied as a lie can be used to avoid more harm to someone else, or to surpise someone on their birthday. The only requirement for it to be a lie is that you’re using a statement with the intent to deceive the other party. Malice is irrelevant. Now a “falsehood” is a broad “anything that is untrue.” All lies are falsehoods by definition, but a falsehood doesn’t require the intent to deceive. When the weather reporter says that it’s going to be a bright and beautiful day and a freak storm rolled in, he didn’t lie but his statement is now false. If I said I’d meet you at the bar at 5:30pm and I show up at 6pm, I didn’t lie but my statement was false.
The issue with falsehoods is when the person or party makes no attempt to correct their previous statement. Using Solo Mode, there were two statements, one is a falsehood and the other is operating under new information.
Statement 1:
This is a partial falsehood. Yes we can play private matches, but no we cannot play Darktide solo. This statement is still untrue and therefore a falsehood. They have not changed stances on this point, as far as we know the intent is still “Yes you will,” so it will remain false until corrected or made true.
Statement 2:
This statement was false until October 2023 when they updated it to say “Solo Mode is not a priority.” That statement remains true until it’s changed by the next announcement.
What we’re pushing for is to reduce the number of falsehoods and replace them with true statements as well as getting updates to the true statements that haven’t been addressed in a while. Fatshark can easily tell us “Solo mode is canceled” and remove the falsehood and remove the need for an update to their “not a priority” statment. But they haven’t done that, for whatever reason that may be, which is why people are frustrated. It’s not just about solo mode, it’s that Fatshark operates with a very cloak and dagger style where they won’t say anything at all until it’s days before the update (sometimes day, singular) at most a week or two iirc. Like I said, all I care about is solo mode so the other aspects of FS comms I’m not the best representative for.