Servers
Overview
There are five publicly accessible servers that run the City of Heroes game. Four of these servers are all physically located in Canada, with Reunion in Germany. Server Transfers are free and plentiful, so it is not necessary to carefully select a server before starting a character.
Additionally, there are the Beta Testing Shards, of which there are presently four.
Server Order
On the server selection screen, the first server listed is the most recent one you have accessed. The remaining servers are listed in increasing order of current load. While the load does not directly correspond to population, high populations are the largest and most common causes of server load. An account that has never logged in before will not have a "last accessed" server at the top of the list, but instead will show all servers in current-load order.
Please note that if a server starts having technical issues, it will shoot to the top or the bottom of the list, depending on its current load, regardless of how many or how few players are connected to it.
Server List
| Server | Average Population | Server-Wide Traits | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Excelsior | High | Currently the highest population server Unofficial PvP Server | |
| Everlasting | Medium | Unofficial RP server | |
| Torchbearer | Low | 1.5x Experience Rate | The first server to be brought up by Homecoming |
| Indomitable | Low | 2x Experience Rate | |
| Reunion | Low | 2x Experience Rate | Physically hosted in Europe. |
The PVP and RP servers are "unofficial" as purely suggestions of where to find types of play. There is no obligation to engage in PVP or RP on these servers, or to (for example) pick an RP-appropriate name, nor is PvP or RP explicitly prohibited on any other server. Reunion is physically in Europe and has a higher proportion of European players, but there's no requirement to play there or not based on where you live.
Higher population servers are more likely to host player-ran activities, such as Costume Contests and iTrials or Raids where lower population servers will schedule the same activities sparsely. Indomitable used to be known as the unofficial PvP server at launch with enthusiasts realizing that most PvP activities occur in Excelsior. The designation moved to Excelsior shortly thereafter.
On January 4th, 2024 after the licensing agreement was announced, Homecoming introduced server-side boosts to XP to encourage new players to join the lower population shards instead of higher ones. Players are also permitted to move characters to lower-population servers to take advantage of the server-side boosts temporarily (while keeping in mind that a Supergroup on the prior server needs at least one player joined as a member without being automatically deleted after transfer.) To this date, the boost remains in effect.