Happy player since day one...now I'm done.

Marked my start system day one with a waypoint so I could backtrack later. 70 hrs in I was done exploring and completed the Atlas quest. Before heading into the center I thought I'd stop off at my start point and for 5 more hrs I was happily making my way home.

...until today...

Loaded up, checked out a planet in the system I was in and launched back into space. Opened my Galaxy Map and found that my Waypoint had vanished, I only had the Center and Free options. Reverted to a previous save...no Waypoint. Quite out, loaded up and checked again...No Waypoint.

In addition, all of my discoveries beyond my current system are all reset to ??? Every site, plant and animal I discovered are gone. The planets I had discovered, although still recorded, all show 100% even though I had not completed them. Meaning I cannot complete them at this point, some were only 1 species away from a milestone.

This is an uacceptible fail, beyond all of the other "features" that have not been implemented. I was patient, I was happy with the game play and exploration. But to lose what was essentially the point of the game...I'm out. Not even a free DLC with missing features will do anything for me at this point.

I noticed the same thing, I noticed I hadn't uploaded a couple planets and creatures. So I was going through my list of systems and planets I had been to and noticed that some of them had been wiped, like I hadn't been there, except the planet saying I discovered it. Other than that you couldn't tell I'd been there. Now they talk about adding more music, that's not even close to what it would take to get me back.

Yikes! You guys have me paranoid that my discoveries are missing as well. I'm going to have to fire up the game later today to check.

I did some research a couple of weeks ago and people in the know were saying the game doesn`t remember stuff you did a while back. I tried going back and when I saw that NONE of it saved, I realised what a waste of time it all was. I like to be able to come back and see what I did. This with all the rest of the faults on top including there being nothing in the centre of the Galaxy (like a bad joke) was the start of the nail in the coffin for me.

y`see I don`t mind wasting time playing games, but my time must feel like it isn`t wasted (like there`s something there saved for all I`ve done).

I don't see me going back the game, it's all lies. It was just a tech demo, and not even a good one since it demo'ed nothing. How Gog and Steam think their reputations are not incredibly damaged by selling people this is beyond me. Actually, I can see Steam doing it and having no problems ripping people off. I always have to remind myself of their "sucks to be you" support model. I have actually been looking at Elite Dangerous videos and thinking about reinstalling it.

This is probably related to the story that went around a few weeks ago about discoveries disappearing.

The save file is limited to a max size was the theory.

Going back to the discovered system, you should see any creatures and names you uploaded (assuming you can find a path back or have a NMS Location Manager Coordinate set).

Basically once the save reaches max size, it starts throwing away data on a first in first out basis.
This is not a problem for data you've uploaded and if you are online.
The data will be permanently stored on the server and if you return to the system after it has purged, it will just download it again.
Related article: http://www.lazygamer.net/gaming-news/thankfully-no-mans-sky-isnt-actually-deleting-discoveries/

One thing I have not seen or heard: How does the GOG offlined version handle the long term exploration since the save on the online versions has a max limit?

NMS Location Manager Coordinate? Never heard of it, it's just another nail in the coffin as far as I am concerned, crap game, no manual, no readme notes, doesn't deserve to be called an application, as it essentially does nothing but look like software.

I actually checked my discovery pages when this was reported, but I had the data, and I was about 60 hrs in at that point with a pretty long list of systems, planets, plants and animals. The main issue here is that my Waypoint was deleted as well along with the ??? appearing. If waypoints are deleting then what is the point? I can no longer explore the way I wanted to, I have lost my direction and can only head to the center or just go around aimlessly. Also, I do play online so in theory it is still all out there, but my personal journey and documentation has been eliminated. I can no longer review my discoveries. That breaks the game for me. Outside of that, it just becomes a walking/flying simulator with no purpose.

Thanks to all for their input. It is truly frustrating experience in the end, one that I was enjoying thoroughly.

This entire game reeks of nothing more then a game created to run on a tablet or mobile device, the fight mechanic is probably the best example of this if not the overall limited graphics.

I am sorry to say this but anyone who worked on this game is either under a NDA with Sony or lacks even the most base moral integrity.

Looking to the future, if all the intention for this game was to make a quick buck and then fade into nothingness then it was a win for whomever lined their pockets with the money but I personally think that S.M. just ran his mouth more and more at each and every interview and had no self control to say "Sorry, no that is not a feature of this game"

If this game were compared to a burger purchased at a fast food restaurant I would say that first and foremost there was no meat at all, and all the toppings were wilted with runny condiments.

The complete lack of any reply from Sony or Hellogames only confirms that this ship has sailed and sunk.

There`s definitely that, and yet, when I watch his interviews you can see how he pauses and blinks when he says `yes` to stuff that isn`t there. It looks like he knows he`s lying or he knows he`s not sure but just saying yes.

I will, however, add Sony to the blame list. They pushed this heavily and shoved Murray out in front. If anyone knew what they were doing I believe it was Sony and they probably saw how weak-willed he was and manipulated him to lie his face off in his own excitement. Now Murray gets crucified while Sony stays back, keeps most of the cash and pretends they had nothing to do with the lies.

I never did like Sony and had I known Sony were behind this whole thing I would never have boought this thing.

I agree with any negative comments about Sony, they are pure poison to any gaming system. I had already pre-ordered before I found out they would be involved. Was my first pre-order of any game too, will not make that mistake twice.

Any online game Sony has anything to do with seems to have a serious problem with BOTS, in their case almost to the point it looks like they support them.

And I agree that Sony could have put Sean Murray on the front line and used him so. What is a real shame is that Sean either did not listen to any friends who were close to him that warned him that his lies would eventually catch up with him, or the man had no friends at all just people who were using him.

Watching Sean in those interviews as you said he blinks and stutters often but most importantly he almost never made eye contact with the host and spent a great deal of his camera time looking dawn and laughing nervously.

I just wonder if Sean is the total tool he appears to be or if he was just a fool and was manipulated into a NDA with Sony and now he cannot say anything to anybody as he knows Sony would just roll over him like a steam roller.

Sean was not comfortable doing 'media' for the game, he said as much a few times, but he drew the short straw and as the main person responsible for the games creation had no choice but to do the interviews etc.

Some people are great at standing up in front of crowds to give talks, or even be very relaxed in one-on-one interviews with strangers (i'm one of those realy comfortable in front of strangers, it really does not bother me how many people there might be or how much a 'stranger' a person is, i will always seem completely comfortable to other people), however many more people find it difficult and some even freeze in panic in those situations. People are different and for the record Sean was way out of his comfort zone doing any of the interviews for NMS.

As for the other things, at this stage we do not really know what took place with NMS. Something must have happened as key talking points during development were not in the eventual release version. Here is the thing though, despite what the internet has decided, for a shy slightly socially awkward guy like Sean to have the pure balls to out right lie about the game, just does not compute.

'He did it for the money!' or 'He is now a millionaire on an island drinking cocktails!' etc (etc etc, there are a LOT of etc's out there!), is also false to the extent that making this a one shot to riches (as in planning to never work again) trick would not be a clever move. It sold well, but not well enough for that.

Maybe if this had been NMS 2 or NMS 3 he could have by then created a franchise that would have had the name recognition to generate truly massive sales and sold a turkey to dissapear to mexico on the money from. But this first attempt an NMS, after a few Joe Danger games (from a small indie team most people did not know before NMS) would have been too risky a prospect to gamble your whole reputation on.

So there are a number of real world things like that, occums razors if you like, to counter the widely held internet meme around this game.

You also should factor in Sony's involvement. One of the worlds largest AAA publishers. How much influence would/could they have had over the release of NMS? Would it be to their advantage to get it running best on PS4 or PC? etc, etc (there are also a lot of these around this issue).

Why have we not heard from Sean since? Why do you think? Is the internets opinion about him and his game kind? Is the internet likely to do anything other than rip his head off (again/some more) but to his face?

Also consider the legal situation with Sony. AAA publishing is what it is, and legal stuff is taken seriously, so it is most likely he is not legally able to talk about any of this and may not be able to for a good while. So all they (Sean and Hello Games) can do is work on the patches and bringing the extra content they had always talked about wanting to make for the game.

I did mention that I suspect Sean and Hellogames are under some NDA and cannot comment on what is really going on.

The reality is that Sean's reputation has been harmed vastly, maybe one day when he is released from the NDA (If that is the case) he will speak out. But until then we the people who paid for the lies will continue to speak our minds as we see fit for as long as we want, regardless of what the pouting Fanboys have to say.

You are playing 'online' right? I had heard that when the servers are not able to be contacted you get all the ????????????? things where your discoveries should go. So that could be the issue?

Then again i had read some stuff from a couple of the early people that opened the files for modding and they seemed to think there was some issue in relation to having people with mods running connect to the online server. As in bugs can be introduced into other peoples game (and saves!).

Also in one of the interviews Sean was puzzled why people might want to hang around a planet and not get to the centre of the galaxy (the games 'main quest') and that did make me wonder about things like saving of details once you leave a place behind. This is not just a single defined location (say like in Morrowind or Skyrim) but a game universe, and at that scale you must have to loose the details? So when i started to follow the game, and came across this comment by Sean, i sort of realised we would not be able to keep everything like we do in an Elder Scrolls game, once we move on, at some point we will loose the data.

Which is a bit sucky if you are into exploring and keeping your mark on the universe! It might be that NMS is just too big to keep the changes like we are used to in Minecraft or Morrowind/Skyrim? It seems to be a game more about the journey rather than the achievements (which is kind of ironic given how those are so in your face!)?

Still thank you for letting us know about your sad discovery, if it is not a bug, then atleast we can all be prepared for the day when we also loose our data from exploration.

I am only going to be playing off-line, so i will report back if i also have this problem, or more importantly if not!

Thanks for the reply. Yes, I was playing online and I did confirm that I was still online after I lost my waypoints and discoveries. I agree with your statement that Sean may have been pushing for the "center journey" to cover up the way the save system is built. If you want people to journey on or you know your system cannot hold data after a certain time/file size, why they hell would you include the option for waypoints?

Regardless, I deleted the game and didn't save my data file so if I do ever play again it will be a fresh game. It sucks because when you break a video game down to it's basics, the most important part is the Game Play. Classics like PacMan or Astroids, no story or goal other that a high score, but the play is what drives you. NMS had this for me, I really enjoyed the play mechanics, but this really ruined my experience since it broke how I was playing the game.