what's a good server to start on?

i started on guardian and while the community is very nice there doesnt seem to be very many people online most hours of the day. can anyone point me to a more active server that also has a friendly community?

Virtue. The best server. We will welcome you with open arms.

thanks for the replies. im a bit reluctant to pick virtue because i am an east coast player and virtue is a west coast server. also on the wiki it says virtue does a lot of role playing and im not really into that.

i like to play at random times. my schedule changes a lot. is virtue evenly active across all times of the day or only during certain peak hours?

Well, it usually is more active around the afternoon time on a weekday, and very active most of the day on the weekends and and friday night. It's more active though on hero side than villain side sadley.

Freedom and Virute are always the most heavily populated, therefore, even at their "low" times they tend a have a number of people.

Virtue was a west coast server, back when the US servers were split between an east coast and west coast data center (so at times half the servers could be down if something happened to one) but that is no longer the case. Calling one west vs. east coast is basically outdated.

Of the servers, the two that have a noticeable pop spike are Victory (aka original Euro server) and Justice (Aussie/NZ server). And that is because of player choices back from original beta.

Guardian's a great server. We tend to do more chatting in global channels than broadcast. I dunno your subscription status, but if you're VIP or reward Tier 3, you can join up the Guardian channel (will need an operator to unsilence you, but otherwise it's public.)

Hope to see you around!

ok quick question: if i buy character slot unlocks for a different server, am i still going to be able to send PMs and use the costume sets i bought on that account?

All those thigs are account "perks" - so yes. Your account does not care what server you are on for things like chat and costumes. The only server your account really cares about is Exalted - the VIP only server.

Freedom!!!!!!

If you want a solo server then the german one's right for you, forget it's name but if you're on US time then you'll mostly never bump into a lot of people. Mostly I find that there's hardly enough for a group, so if you're into stories then that's the place.

For teaming and no-role play? Freedom is the best in my experience for that, but lots of trollish people. Lots.

For teaming, friendly environment, and the constant wtbuttocks; Virtue. They are super nice, lots of teaming, and lots of activity. Again in my experience.

Exalted has a high number of either new people or veterans with a stick so far up in a place that can't be reached you won't ever see it again. Not that you'd want to.

Haven't really branched out to the others that much.
Welcome to the Game, fellow new person.

Freedom and Virtue.

Freedom seems to have the most populated redside nowadays, my impression is that Virtue players heavily favor blueside.

I've had more bad experiences on Virtue than Freedom, weirdly. Freedom has always been friendly to me. I'm not saying Virtue is unfriendly, far from it, and it's not like the 'bad' experience were anything I got upset or whatever, I love both servers.

That said, Virtue seems to be home of more hardcore players (in the sense of being addicted to the game) - I can always find a TF or different stuff at weird times, in Freedom not so often. I don't RP, the Virtue RPers are not as prevalent as before, maybe because of the server growth, it looks as crowded as Freedom after I returned from a 1.5 yr break.

I've been playing some on Champion and I'm finding the community VERY friendly, but it's emptier than those two, I have no problems there but I use global channels and stuff to team.

Utterly biased answer - Virtue

whether it's RP or non-RP you're looking for, the server seems pretty well populated night and day...and as for that nasty rumor that redside is dead...let's just say it's plenty lively if you know where to look

Best experiences, IMHO:
Pinnacle
Victory
Infinity
Guardian

See my Guides and Tutorials

Virtue and Freedom. Virtue is more PVE than Freedom though. And has RP if you're into it. It's not required of course.

Most of the servers are going to require that you get into the Global Chat Channels to be part of the main action. Victory (used as an example only because it's my home) has an active community, but if you don't join the Globals you won't see it. If having non-stop grouping is what you want though, Freedom and Virtue are your choices. Of the two I would recommend Virtue. It may be the unoffical RP server, but I don't believe the folks there are uptight about it (except that is the server most likely to report inappropriate names) and it seems to have a better sense of 'community' than Freedom. I should here make a disclaimer that I have not actually played on Virtue. I have played on Freedom and did not enjoy the environment where blind invites seemed to be standard behavior. So take my recommendation with a grain of salt as I freely admit it may be biased.

Edit: I wouldn't be too quick on abandoning Guardian. If you don't already have their Global chat channels you can check their forums.

I'm playing Virtue exclusively now. I was a Freedom player for a couple years. They are two very different communities. Freedom has a more wild west feel amongst its players. They can be ornery and ignorant and mean spirited, but its the wild west, what did you expect. There are also some very very very good players/channels on Freedom. Top notch if you know where to look or get lucky or *gulp* research. Also, I found Redside Freedom (Where I played mostly) to be very fun. Virtue is quite different, I would say more hardcore geek fan fiction types. Heavy RP community. I recently got in a lot of trouble on Virtue for asking (by asking I mean advertising I would pay 20 million a run for a good farm). The community shut me down, and I mean hard. On Freedom? Heh. Those peeps trade sky high stacks yo, and farming is a sub community that is deeply entrenched. I only mentioned the event because it illustrates the difference in the servers. Please lets not discuss it further.

Dear OP,

Welcome to the City of Heroes/Villains Community. First off, play how you want to play. I can point you towards to some great duckplayers(relaxed/former military personnel) that has ventrilo(speaking tool) so you dont have to type. They're not hardcore type players, they play to have fun. Virtue is the second most active server in the game, which is high role play but don't get me wrong, they know what they're doing when they team. Freedom is the most populated server, mostly teen going through puberty and farming and a lot of trolls. Champion server is known as the Drama Server. Liberty is the nicest server on the game. Protector/Guardian is active during the evening. Guardian is mostly Veterans that like to solo, unless you get into a Super Group thats active teaming. Mainly all the servers have 1-3main global channels.

• Liberty - LB / LFA / Sisterhoodfriends
• Exalted - EXALTED-UNITED, BMT of Exalted, Exalted Events

I would point out more channels, but I've forgotten them. I've recently left them since Im just focusing on 2 servers right now.

In my opinion, the game is worth the $15bucks a month. You're missing a lot if youre free/premium player.