I took the bullet for all the pundits last week when I said marketing and misinformation lead to people believing No Man's Sky is something it isn't and got raked over the coals for it. Now we have guys like Boogie2988 and Polygon saying the same thing and everyone wants to have a discussion about what was clear leading all the way up to this game's launch.
Why? Two players happened to land "very close" to each other in the Quintillion planet system and decided to meet up in what would be an incredibly awesome and rare instance according to Hello Games. The two players streamed the event, got to the exact same location, and...nothing. Neither one could see the other and a feature we were told leading up to launch would be included is now in question.
Now you're either on one side of this argument or the other. You have the people who like No Man's Sky who will make 1,000 excuses as to what happened and how this doesn't make it a bad game. You'll also have the group that hates the game and will look for any excuse to poke holes in what has been an enjoyable experience for many. I don't care about any of that, I just want answers...and just like I preached last week we continue to be met with vague responses.
This isn't a witch hunt by any means, but guys don't let fandom blind yourself to accountability. Give some answers as to what happened, or maybe even just admit you don't know what happened and that you are looking into it! I'm fully willing to accept that Hello games thought this feature worked and something went wrong. All you have to do is say "huh, weird. We will look into it.". No one expects a game of this scale to be perfect, there's nothing wrong with saying things still need to be fixed.
From what I understand there's plenty of valid answers as to why this could've happened, so just give your community an answer or at the least say you're looking into it. It prevents frenzy, internet arguments, and pundits looking out for the good of consumers sticking their necks out on their behalf.