No Man's Sky appears to delete your discoveries after two weeks [UPDATED]

Names given to planets and solar systems remain untouched, but everything else seems to be fair game.

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Update: 7:44p Pacific

No Man's Sky might not be overwriting discovering after all. In an edit to his original post on game's sub-Reddit, Dark_Nexis explained that he redownloaded No Man's Sky and, after a couple of hours, noticed that the discoveries he'd made on his starting planet had reappeared.

Based on his anecdotal evidence, the issue might stem from game servers taking more or less time to refresh discoveries as players move further and further away from them. "It seems like a server bugs like it takes a while for your old discoveries to re download," he wrote. "Please spread the word and if you are having this problem just wait and see if your discoveries will return. It seems a little bugged where as you get further and further away from your starting point you can't see your old discoveries even when you find your way back. It's like the server lags behind big time and takes a while to find the old information."

Original story follows

According to several users on Reddit, No Man's Sky deletes any discoveries other than names of planets and solar systems after two weeks (via Geek.com).

Reddit user Dark_Nexis returned to the system where he began his adventure only to find that the names he'd given locations, flora, and fauna had been reset. "I check a few neighboring stars I discovered and their discovers were wiped. So none of my named animals plants were ever saved. The system name and planet names were saved but everything else was wiped." [Comment edited for grammar and spelling.]

Other players experiencing the same issue chimed in. "Yesterday I browsed my list of discoveries, and went all the way to my starting planet," wrote Ultrasilvanus. "The system and all the planets I've ever been to are clearly marked as being discovered by me, the planets list 100% completion for animal scans but I can't see any animal or plant in the gallery and all of them appear as ???????"

Further investigation revealed that No Man's Sky seems to be erasing discoveries in chronological order, from oldest to newest.

In defense of Hello Games, deleting discoveries could be a bug rather than a design decision. All evidence has been anecdotal so far. However, it's not surprising that affected players are disappointed. Whether a bug or design decision, No Man's Sky is predicated on exploration, discovery, and putting your mark on those discoveries by naming them—planting your flag in soil untouched by others, so to speak.

Without that hook, many players might decide that exploration is meaningless.

Long Reads Editor

David L. Craddock writes fiction, nonfiction, and grocery lists. He is the author of the Stay Awhile and Listen series, and the Gairden Chronicles series of fantasy novels for young adults. Outside of writing, he enjoys playing Mario, Zelda, and Dark Souls games, and will be happy to discuss at length the myriad reasons why Dark Souls 2 is the best in the series. Follow him online at davidlcraddock.com and @davidlcraddock.

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From The Chatty
  • reply
    August 26, 2016 2:45 PM

    David Craddock posted a new article, No Man's Sky appears to delete your discoveries after two weeks

    • reply
      August 26, 2016 3:07 PM

      [deleted]

    • reply
      August 26, 2016 4:01 PM

      ok, thats pretty fucking sad.

    • reply
      August 26, 2016 4:04 PM

      Did you contact Hello Games for comment?

      • reply
        August 26, 2016 4:07 PM

        Also lol @ "According to several users on Reddit"

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          August 26, 2016 4:14 PM

          Obviously credible lol

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            August 26, 2016 4:23 PM

            This story originated on Reddit. Reddit users are the source for the story.

            • reply
              August 26, 2016 4:24 PM

              Oh wasn't doubting you, but for as much hate as that sub reedit gets I would take stuff as grain of salt. Sorry didn't explain myself :)

              • reply
                August 26, 2016 4:30 PM

                No worries. :)

                Believe me, I didn't jump on the story right away. I read through the Reddit thread to see how many other people were reporting the same problem, and hunted around to see if other websites were running with the story. If I were after clicks, as certain other members of the community seem to believe, I'd have published it much sooner.

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                  August 26, 2016 4:45 PM

                  How dare you write for this website! The nerve. Using the front page of the Internet as a source of information. Where do you get off?

                  https://media.giphy.com/media/zrdUjl6N99nLq/giphy.gif

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                  August 26, 2016 6:31 PM

                  I have a lot of respect for you Mr. Craddock, I'm just tired of all these negative articles. I'd rather see posts about the great mods the pc community is producing, or the fact that Hello Games has cranked out 4 very quick patches that address most of the launch technical issues. But I've voiced my opinion pretty clearly at this point, so I'll get off my soapbox.

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                    August 26, 2016 8:06 PM

                    Negative? So you want them to smokescreen bad business practices to protect future games from scrutiny?

                    We need a HOLY SHIT LOL tag for this one.

                    • reply
                      August 26, 2016 9:59 PM

                      This ended up being a non-issue. The article has no basis in reality (nothing was cleared/deleted, players just didn't give the servers enough time to resync the data). This isn't "scrutiny", it's jumping on the hate bandwagon as fast as possible.

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                      August 27, 2016 12:14 PM

                      Yeah almost ever article about No Man's Sky is negative what would you call it?

                      Let me ask you this how many negative Star Citizen articles has this site published or any other video game site?

                      Almost every video web site is unfairly picking on the indie game No Man's Sky and as far as I am concerned its ridiculous, unfair and sad.

                      No hate on you David, I know your just doing your job, so to be clear I am not pointing the finger at you what so ever for the article in case that is not clear.

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                    August 26, 2016 8:13 PM

                    [deleted]

                • reply
                  August 26, 2016 10:00 PM

                  it's a tough call when lots of blogging sites are chasing social media, they're not always going to get things right in general. Kudos for staying on updating it, though how would you feel about using a phrasing like "Redditor claims XYZ" or "Player's losing access to X, game appeared to delete it", as opposed to just "Game appeared to delete it?"

                  Separate the factual part (they did lose access to it), from the alleged information?

      • reply
        August 26, 2016 4:22 PM

        What's the value of research and credible sources when reposting random shit from reddit gets you clicks?

    • reply
      August 26, 2016 4:05 PM

      Well that's not good

    • reply
      August 26, 2016 4:05 PM

      LOL that would have been one of my main reasons for buying the game.

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      August 26, 2016 4:13 PM

      "According to some users on Reddit"

      lol. Hard hitting journalism here. ;)

      Sucks if true tho.

    • reply
      August 26, 2016 4:14 PM

      all those people that named their planets after dead loved ones

    • reply
      August 26, 2016 4:16 PM

      This really fucking breaks quite possibly the coolest part of the game. If this shit is true (and I hope it isn't) then really gotta fix this.

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      August 26, 2016 4:50 PM

      I wonder if this is actually the result of a change in the universe generation rules. After one of the patches recently, I noticed that a space station that used to have a gek dude in it, didn't.

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        August 26, 2016 4:55 PM

        If it's somehow not clear, I am suggesting that those creatures no longer have names because they are now different creatures, because Hello Games changed something.

    • reply
      August 26, 2016 4:51 PM

      [deleted]

    • reply
      August 26, 2016 5:00 PM

      Considering the game has been available for about 2 weeks now (I think), shouldn't there be a lot of other players able to verify this? Shackers?

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        August 26, 2016 5:11 PM

        I just checked. Mine are still there in the "Discoveries" list, going all the way back to my first system.

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        August 26, 2016 5:24 PM

        If I read the original Reddit post right the guy only noticed because he set a waypoint at his first planet and decided to go back to it after discovering the center. It says he has over 90 warp jumps.

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          August 26, 2016 5:31 PM

          Yeah I think it unlikely that a lot of users would ever think to check, I know I have very low interest in ever revisiting any of my planets, but now I kind of want to.

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      August 26, 2016 5:38 PM

      [deleted]

    • reply
      August 26, 2016 6:16 PM

      Truly the sky of no man

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      August 26, 2016 7:03 PM

      Looking through my discoveries they are still named correctly. They haven't reverted back to ????

      Maybe we need a non-reddit source.

    • reply
      August 26, 2016 7:12 PM

      Time to update the article.

      From the Dark_nexis post:
      Huge edit kinda resolved my issue:Ok so after reading some of the comments I played around in the game a bit, I re-downloaded and reloaded the game for about two hours. I don't know what happened but all the discoveries re-appeared on my starting planet.https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Cq1KN2oWcAA_SUc.jpg sorry for phone pic. I hope new news sites see this...It seems like a server bugs like it takes a while for your old discoveries to re download. Please spread the word and if you are having this problem just wait and see if your discoveries will return. It seems a little bugged where as you get further and further away from your starting point you can't see your old discoveries even when you find your way back. It's like the server lags behind big time and takes a while to find the old information.

      • reply
        August 26, 2016 7:16 PM

        Gamers are so horny for No Man's Sky drama. It's embarrassing.

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          August 26, 2016 7:41 PM

          Everyone has such a hardon to hate this game, meanwhile I'm just having fun playing it.

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          August 26, 2016 8:18 PM

          [deleted]

        • reply
          August 26, 2016 10:44 PM

          [deleted]

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            August 26, 2016 11:18 PM

            I feel very confident in asserting that no game has ever experienced the amount of hype that No Man's Sky had. It is unique in the history of games. Where are the weeks of threads about how The Division failed to live up to its original promise? Watch Dogs also faded into obscurity quickly.

            And yet we now have hundreds of YouTube videos where Sean Murray looks evil as the presenter tries to convince us that he LIED TO US AND SHOULD BE SUED FOR FALSE ADVERTISING.

            There is something extremely unique about the No Man's Sky scenario. Also gamers are stupid as shit and they embarrass me.

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              August 27, 2016 6:42 AM

              Iirc there were plenty of people talking about the problems with the division, especially at the end game level. I know at this point most of what I see about the division around here is people dismissing it as a disappointing experience.

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        August 26, 2016 9:07 PM

        [deleted]

      • reply
        August 26, 2016 9:15 PM

        I wonder if you play this game offline the entire time if anything would happen at all?

    • reply
      August 26, 2016 7:52 PM

      BiggerThings mod screenshots:

      My first really alien plant...the mod makes it amazing.

      http://steamcommunity.com/id/vismonkey/screenshots/?appid=275850

      • reply
        August 27, 2016 3:35 AM

        ^ this holds the answers you seek

    • reply
      August 26, 2016 8:07 PM

      [deleted]

    • reply
      August 26, 2016 9:27 PM

      Ethics in videogame journalism

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      August 26, 2016 9:27 PM

      It's all fucking garbage. People thought there were servers tracking your position and everyone else. They never had that equipment. It's one server that keeps a bunch of names and locations. Each time you jump it just looks to see if that has a username yet.

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        August 26, 2016 9:31 PM

        Also I'm willing to bet that the Sony deal was what did this. It wasn't going to have any online before I bet. Sony won't release many games at $60 without online. Of course by that time the entire code was written without a server in mind. Have fun with that.

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        August 27, 2016 2:39 AM

        What people? I've literally never had that perception? What purpose would positional tracking even have?

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          August 27, 2016 5:14 AM

          He meana that instance bubble Hello Games talked about.

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        August 27, 2016 6:58 AM

        What do you think all online games are? It's just a relational database which stores all the information. I'm sure if there's an issue with replication (such as heavy load from a new released game) you'll have issues like this.

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      August 26, 2016 9:47 PM

      thats the sort of thing that could result in retailers having to give people money back in .au

      does not do what the game said it would do on the box

    • reply
      August 26, 2016 9:50 PM

      This game is the video game equivalent of a prolonged season of sliders, but where every planet is the hitler planet. I really enjoy games like Trove, Minecraft surival mode, h1z1, etc..., too...

      I knew nothing about this game when I acquired it (my wife bought it for me, as a birthday gift!). After trying to find fun in it for a good while, I watched some of those sean murray interviews...

      Wow, they are just infuriating to watch. What a terrible company.

      • reply
        August 26, 2016 9:53 PM

        That said, this article could have used more vetting going in!

        After watching some of the interviews with Sean Murray, I'd really like to see him have to publicly admit how badly he miscommunicated, I even think steam should probably offer folks a refund or discount program considering they're still presenting some of the misleading advertising on the game's sale page, but that's no excuse for hearsay :)

        • reply
          August 26, 2016 10:12 PM

          Nothing in the "About this game" on the Steam store page is misleading at all. It is all 100% accurate as to what the game offers. Some of the videos are outdated of course, but that is no different on many other game's store pages. They always keep old trailers around on those pages, it is kind of weird but absolutely normal.

          Basically in terms of selling the game, nothing is abnormal from selling any other game. The biggest problem is that Sean has said and shown some things about the game when it was too early to speak about them. He may have talked up features that were cut from the game.

          The mistake of the hype and other things is regrettable, and it is understandable that some people are upset. A small indie studio made some mistakes, but is getting AAA sized backlash which is pretty unfair imho.

          But whatever, I am having a ton of fun with the game still, and I am happy that this whole "discovery" bug isn't real, as it is a major component to the game.

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            August 26, 2016 10:32 PM

            Really?

            filled with unique planets and lifeforms, and constant danger and action.

            Emphasis on constant danger and ACTION. I guess scanning another plant or dinosaur is action? Atmosphere, sentinels, and dinosaurs]i unique lifeforms provide danger?

            But, facing hostile creatures and fierce pirates, you'll know that death comes at a cost, and survival will be down to the choices you make over how you upgrade your ship, your weapon and suit.

            How much does death cost exactly? $59.99? 2 minutes spent retrieving all you lost upon death (thus providing approximately a 100% discount on death)?

            Trade convoys travel between stars, factions vie for territory, pirates hunt the unwary, and the police are ever watching.

            I guess so. I mean I see fighters attacking convoys (but doing no damage) and I never really see the convoys moving other than warping into position to be preyed upon by unknown fighters that do zero damage. And the police? Police=sentinels?

            They make the animals and pirates and police sound menacing, but none of them really are. You can pretty much kill any of them with your mining tool. It only gets easier with an actual weapon.

            All in all they make it sound EPIC (no really, it say embark on an epic journey ) and exciting and action packed with virtually limitless possibilities. That sounds a lot better than collect resources, warp to next system, catalogue similar looking plants and animals on similar looking planet (anybody found any caves or plutonium yet???), talk to an alien, repeat.

            I killed probably 60+ hours so I'm not saying it had no value for me and the sheer size and scope of it all is pretty goddamn impressive, but I can understand how some found it underwhelming and some found it not at all what they were expecting.

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            August 27, 2016 12:19 AM

            $60 is $60- that's AAA.

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            August 28, 2016 2:02 AM

            It's a $60 game backed by Sony.

    • reply
      August 26, 2016 9:52 PM

      geek.com totally ripped you off, gross

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      August 26, 2016 10:03 PM

      so NMS question, when you guys go to warp and are looking at the star map do you continue on your "path towards waypoint"
      or do you tab over to "path towards galactic core"

      every single time i go there i tab back over to path towards galactic core.

      I have gone to warp some 172 times now and i am still 141410.0 light years away from the core

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        August 27, 2016 12:09 AM

        Not sure what kind of waypoint you have there, but if it's related to the Atlas quest then after finishing it you will be able to see black holes on the starmap.

        Judging from my pace it will take me 2 years in real life to get to the core.

    • reply
      August 26, 2016 11:59 PM

      Not true. All my discoveries from 2 weeks ago are still there. But hey, got some clicks from a reddit based article.

    • reply
      August 27, 2016 1:23 AM

      [deleted]

    • reply
      August 27, 2016 6:20 AM

      The NMS server(s) will go offline in less then a year because no reason to pay to keep them on, so.... who cares?

    • reply
      August 27, 2016 6:54 AM

      [deleted]

      • reply
        August 27, 2016 7:34 AM

        Is it an animal that's reverting? That happens when an animal has "male" and "female" variants. Essentially only the most recent version you've scanned sticks in the list of animals. You want to name them both the same thing. It's irritating.

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        August 27, 2016 7:50 AM

        I wonder if they're removing trademarked names and the like.

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      August 27, 2016 6:58 AM

      no mans discovery

    • reply
      August 27, 2016 11:44 AM

      So, was any work done or just saw something on Reddit and now gotta get some clicks...

    • reply
      August 27, 2016 3:44 PM

      "Further investigation" should have involved contacting the developer for a statement.

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