Someone with a username containing “two separate, unmistakable Nazi references” was recently banned from No Man’s Sky for repeatedly sabotaging construction projects on the Galactic Hub. The person has been described as a “neo-Nazi” by numerous other players including the one who founded the Galacric Hub, 7101334.
“A neo-Nazi troll is griefing bases in the Galactic Hub and there’s nothing we can do,” 7101334 described on Reddit. “Every single leader of a canonized civilization agrees that Hello Games has failed civilized space with their inaction. The ‘Report Base’ function returns a 500 Error, meaning Hello Games has never seen a single one of those reports and the in-game ‘Block’ function just doesn’t work at all.”
7101334 described the Galactic Hub as “an 11-region area of space where players build and play together.” This part of the universe in No Man’s Sky belongs to what players call “civilized space.” In other words, the Galactic Hub is meant to be a place where people can come together to pursue common goals like building party planets or utopian cities. While players have put countless hours into these construction projects, the “neo-Nazi troll” has been “dedicating excessive amounts of time purely to ruining other players' experiences and hard work” by burying bases with building blocks.
The developer behind No Man’s Sky, Hello Games, said in a statement to Kotaku that “it’s common sadly for the most problematic players to find ways to have the most offensive names.” The company noted how “the most effective thing when we see these names are reported to us is for us to report them to the platform holder and have them banned from all games rather than us banning them just from No Man’s Sky. This is our normal course of action. Having said that, the specific player you mentioned has already been permanently banned from No Man’s Sky also.” Hello Games added that “we have a policy of not publicly acknowledging trolls or their methods to prevent encouraging copycats.”
As for the “Report Base” feature resulting in a “500 Error,” Hello Games attributed this to the fact that bases were being reported multiple times. The company noted that every complaint had in fact been received.
While the player in question has been permanently banned, many in the No Man’s Sky community have been left feeling fearful for the future. 7101334 pointed out that Hello Games “has given their community no meaningful tools to counteract trolls. They've also shown a total unwillingness to act directly. We've filed report tickets for a variety of base griefers, having multiple Galactic Hub staff members file reports, so you know they saw them, and no action has ever been taken.”
“The easiest, least controversial solution would be for them to fix their in-game block button,” 7101334 told Kotaku. “Currently, it does nothing at all, as far as we can tell.” The player went on to say that “maybe it blocks someone from joining you, but they can still just warp to the system and get in your session without directly joining.”
“Hello Games' hands-off attitude towards trolls and griefers including in this instance a neo-Nazi defacing bases,” 7101334 said, “is harming their community.” The player described how “their unwillingness to give communities which have established themselves over a period of multiple years the tools to moderate their own space is resulting in a frustrating and unpleasant experience for many people.” And this frustration is just “for the benefit of a single neo-Nazi troll.”