18 quintillion planets and you still can’t get rid of the worst people on earth. Namely: The central hub of Nobody’s heaven, a region of mapped space known as the Galactic Hub, was recently threatened by a troll that players dub “Neo-Nazi.” Developer Hello Games has permanently banned the Griefer, but players still have concerns about the game’s reporting tools.
Nobody’s heaven, which first released for PC and PlayStation in 2016, has come a long way since its rockin’ debut. At launch – and this is a story elaborated in more written accounts than there are planets Nobody’s heaven– The game lacked many promised features, like a working multiplayer. The hype hinted at a game so technically extensive that you would probably never encounter another player. But when the players actually visited the exact same planet, they couldn’t interact. she couldn’t even see each other.
Many of the launch window issues have since been fixed, and Hello Games has continued to release more than a dozen free extensions over the years, the introduction of features such as mechs and custom bases. Nobody’s heaven has more or less regained the lost goodwill of its early years and spawned a robust and hyperactive multiplayer community.
This community gathers in a series of populated regions referred to as “civilized space.” one of them is the Galactic Huba series of 11 interconnected regions where players gather to bluntly build cool shit. A planet is home to an endless rave. (I’ll take a one-way ticket, please.) One more thing is a sprawling series of roads and outpoststhe basis for an eventual utopian city.
For the most part, the Galactic Hub is troll-free, surprising given the rampant toxicity that permeates online gaming these days. But recently, as one of the hub’s moderators in a long explanation posted on Reddita player took it upon himself to wreak havoc.
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“A neo-Nazi troll mourns for bases in the Galactic Center and there is nothing we can do,” said the player known as 7101334, who founded the Galactic Center, wrote. “Every single leader of a canonized civilization will agree that Hello Games has failed civilized space with their inaction. The “Report Base” feature returns a 500 error, meaning Hello Games has never seen a single one of these reports, and the “Block” feature in game doesn’t work at all.”
Throughout the Galactic Center, players devote much of their time to building bases, outposts, and other exoplanetary structures. However, the troll in question would show up and Gypsum blocks all over these bases, which essentially ruins all carefully laid plans. In any role-playing situation, be it a video game or a round D&Dthere’s some leeway for assholes – life is full of assholes, after all – but there’s a limit.
Representatives provided for the Galactic Center igamesnews with the troll’s username in the background to avoid conflicting with possible terms Nobody’s heaventhe EULA. igamesnews was able to further verify the username in screenshots and a video clip, and it does contain numbers commonly associated with White Supremacy, as well as a reference to a well-known neo-Nazi leader. When asked for comment, Hello Games declined to provide or officially confirm each player’s username, but said so igamesnews:
Unfortunately, it is common for the most problematic players to find ways to have the most offensive names… The most effective way when we see these names being reported to us is that we report them to the platform owner and have them banned Everyone Games instead of us just banning them Nobody’s heaven. This is our normal procedure. However, the specific player you mentioned has already been permanently banned Nobody’s heaven Even.
However, the mere act of reporting the troll raised concern among them Nobody’s heaven parishioners. Players say that attempting to report the offending player resulted in a “Server 500” error, leading many to believe that the reports weren’t actually forwarded to Hello Games. For its part, the studio denies this and says it received the complaints.
A Hello Games representative said igamesnews The reason these errors appeared was because the offending player’s bases had already been reported. (Nobody’s heaven missing some of the direct player reporting tools available in other online games, which has been an issue for a long time in the game’s community, but players can report offensive bases directly instead of the players who built them. Here is a video guide how it works.)
When players report a base, it’s immediately locked from local view – meaning they can’t see it on their PC or console – but is still “downloadable by other players”. Otherwise, the representative said, it could easily be misused. Hello Games will review and moderate all reports accordingly. In this case, the representative said, the reported bases were moderated even though the offending player used specific tactics to circumvent the game’s existing anti-troll methods, for which a fix is on the way.
“We have identified these and a patch will be rolled out as soon as possible,” the representative said, referring to the exploits to avoid moderation. “We have a policy of not publicly acknowledging trolls or their methods to avoid encouraging copycats.”
In this case, the matter is closed. The player will be banned. but Nobody’s heaven Players still have concerns about the reporting tools available to the community – or rather not.
“The easiest and least controversial solution would be for them to fix their in-game lock button. It’s not currently doing anything as far as we can tell,” said 7101334 igamesnews by email. “May block someone from joining you, but they can still just zip to the system and join your session without joining directly.”
Other players, meanwhile, say handing such strict reporting tools to community members or even trusted moderators may open the door to exploitation. Giving each player such unilateral power is ripe for abuse. But it is clear that something has to give way. While trolls and griefers are rare Nobody’s heaven, they are still a problem. 7101334 pointed to a notable member of the Galactic Center who said they no longer build structures on planets because they know that these structures have a high chance of being besmirched by bad actors. This is of course not ideal.
“This is the state of affairs and it will take more than one ban to fix it,” said 7101334. “If you’re playing as someone who deserves to be banned, [Hello Games] needs to roleplay as a company that actually protects its community.”
When asked about possible plans to expand the reporting toolkit for players, the Hello Games representative had nothing to add. The studio is “confident in the level of protection that we already provide,” they said.
