I am using a home router OR I am connecting through a campus/business/military network.

Question

I am using a home router OR I am connecting through a campus/business/military network.

Answer

Both home routers and commercial routers can block the network ports required by the game. City of Heroes and City of Villains require the following ports to be open:

All of these ports:
TCP 2104
TCP 2106
UDP 7000-7100

One of the following ports:
TCP 6994 or TCP 13094 or TCP 23094

These ports must be fully unrestricted and accessible inbound and out. If you are connecting to the game while on a campus or business network, please consult your network administrator to verify that those ports are available. If those ports are blocked, you will unfortunately not be able to play City of Heroes or City of Villains using that Internet connection.

My network admin says the necessary ports are open, but I still cannot connect to the game.

If you are using a home router, please make sure that your network's hardware is configured to allow access on those ports.

Common network hardware manufacturers:

D-Link®: http://support.dlink.com/
Linksys®: http://www.linksys.com/support
NETGEAR®: http://kbserver.netgear.com/main.asp
Belkin®: http://www.belkin.com/support/

For further information regarding opening ports or port forwarding, visit: http://www.portforward.com/ (not affiliated with or supported by NCsoft or Cryptic).

If you are using a home router, one definitive step you can try is removing your router and connecting directly to your modem with an Ethernet cable. Verify that you are able to browse to a website and then attempt to play the game. If you cannot browse to a website, reboot your modem by unplugging the power cable. After that is done, reboot your computer, then try again.