Fact checking, obviously.

Your original post asks if you’re a journalist for fact checking articles, we got to these comments from that.

Where do you think sources end? If I mention that biden is currently president, do I need a source linked? If 1+1 is 2, do I need to provide a source? Do I need to source the definitions of every word? Do I need a source that vaccines don’t cause autism? That 5g doesn’t cause COVID?

It’s hard to discuss this without knowing what text you’re referring to, and if I go back to check if you mentioned it I’ll lose my comment because I’m using an app. Some things don’t need sourcing because they’re accepted facts, like who the president is, basic science, simple maths, etc, but most important, the things that an article should always cite are the claims the article itself is making. I wouldn’t cite sources for 5G not causing covid, for example, unless the article was specifically about that.

…yes…but you do understand a journalist is someone who writes/reads news right? They’re not just sat around with sources for no reason, those sources are specifically so they can report news…that’s the point. What do you think a source is!?

Ok how are you fact checking, are you finding people with expertise and contacting them or googling and using whatever shite websites come up as a source? If the latter, how are you verifying the veracity of those sources?

And yes sources are required but that doesn’t mean that’s ALL that’s required or you wouldn’t have newspapers or organisations, just some people calling themselves journalists that have a bunch of sources, but nobody knows what for because they’ve never produced a piece of journalism for them to be of use.

The idea used to be that you find a news source that is the most reliable. Now half the world just finds the one that confirms their biases the most, and their biases are fucking stupid after decades of lies and education cuts from various rich cunts.

No? For a start, journalists write news, are you writing it down in an article afterwards?

A giant catapulting you in Skyrim costs you only the time since your last save. I’m more than happy to accept consequences that make sense in any way.

I would love to be permanently hostile to grove guards, instead I’m stuck in a loop and have to murder my own companions.

I want crazy consequences, but they’re only satisfying when it’s something that was thought through and implemented. Something that actually makes sense. Sneaking around guards? Yes. Need to pass a persuasion/deception check? Yes? Halsin is a bit put off in conversation, or even decides not to accompany me or reward me? Absolutely.

An entire population of an area suddenly turning on a dime from praising me and giving me gifts because I saved their lives to suddenly trying to murder me because a known untrustworthy actor says I threatened them without so much as a speech check at my camp that I can’t avoid going to AND stopping me from resting beforehand, obviously not. I saved their lives like 15-20 game HOURS AFTER threatening the thief. They invited themselves to my camp to celebrate with me for rescuing every last one of them, and then tried to kill me when I show up. It’s nonsense, you must see how that’s very unsatisfying? It doesn’t even make sense in world.

Nobody thinks I’m wrong? I replied to a comment that said it’s intended behaviour. And it has completely derailed the character.

Once again I expected consequences I didn’t expect it to be completely bugged out and broken. I passed the persuasion check and had to do it again, and again, and again, until I failed, because once the dialogue closed my character was still in their sight. Every other time where you’re spotted somewhere you’re not supposed to be and you pass a persuasion check you’re either given access to the area or moved out of the area afterwards specifically to avoid this problem.

If you actually think it’s intended behaviour and not an oversight then I don’t know what to tell you, you’re obviously wrong, it’s the buggiest thing I’ve seen in the game - watching it happen looks obviously wrong. Note that every single person in the actual druids grove wasn’t hostile to me whatsoever. It was just some guards around the outside - after they let me in through the gate. Halsin, Vaghda, the dude Halsin sends you to for the rune reward, the Halsins assistant, the druids milling around around the statue, even the bears, none of them hostile. Then I travel to camp and suddenly they’re amongst thirty people trying to kill me.

How about “I didn’t do that, she’s a thief and a liar by reputation” as a deception check, since that’s literally who she is and she stole from me early in the game and I was just trying to get it back? How about just conforming to how these same checks work in the rest of the game?

Or how about not suddenly turning every single person at my camp where I have to go to rest hostile on the word of a known thief and liar after I’ve just saved every single person there? That’s why they’re there, to celebrate me saving their lives. They all merrily made their way all the way to my camp to celebrate me, sat there drinking and chatting with my party members, then when I turn up every last one of them and my own party members turns hostile and tries to kill me. On the word of someone who cons and steals from people on their way into a druid grove.

It couldn’t be clearer that the way these consequences appear don’t make sense.

All this because I dared to suggest one miniscule part of a game I love, have spent 250 hours playing, and have described as amazing, phenomenal, and a masterpiece, was a bit broken.

Broken my feelings? Dude this clearly isn’t the intended behaviour and therefore is a big and it’s completely derailed the role I was playing.

Hold it against them? It’s just criticism of a broken bit of their phenomenal game. I started out by specifically saying it’s amazing but not perfect, with this example. It’s ok to criticise things you like, you know.

It’s something that it lets you do and the consequence for it is the easily the most broken part of the game. It’s obviously not been thought through or set up properly and it’s an incredibly poor thing to be there at all, never mind years after release.

Not “having” to do something has no bearing on whether or not that thing is broken. When this happens, it feels broken, like a really serious bug. It repeats a conversation indefinitely, it’s very clearly not intentional, especially considering moments earlier I was chatting to Halsin in the grove and he was very complimentary due to me saving his life, stopping a shadow druid from fucking over innocents, and saving the entire grove. But because I threatened a thief and gained the check the whole quest line for the first act is fucked AFTER I did ask the work.

And like I said I’ve completely wiped out so the goblins and already made it to camp to celebrate. But instead they all want to kill me. I was specifically aiming to get Halsin in my party this time round but can’t now and I found out 40 hours in.

A while ago I started a Dark Urge paladin who immediately broke his oath upon reaching Gale. Shortly after I ran into Mol who I think I failed in intimidation check against if I remember right. She said she’d tell the guards I was threatening children.

I wandered off and did all the rest of act 1, found Halsin, wiped out the goblins and leaders, etc, and when I got back to the grove if any guard saw me it’d trigger a dialogue where I had to talk my way out of it or they’d attack me because of Mol. Thing is, I talked my way out of it, but it didn’t move my character after the dialogue so it’d just trigger again on a loop forever.

I used Astarion to turn my PC invisible to get around this, talked to Halsin who didn’t seen to mind, received rewards, thought I’d subverted it. Then I went to camp for the end of act one celebration and, yep, the gurds did the same thing there as well. Except now they’re all together on my camp and every single other character that was there but the four in my party was on their side. That’s Halsin, Laezel, Shadowheart, and every single thiefling and guard against my unrested party.

Broken. Do NOT mess with Mol.

As phenomenally good as Baldurs Gate 3 is, it’s not perfect. I lost an entire character at the very end of act one because I pissed off Mol lately.