Every hero has friends and family filling his life with both joy and angst. Sometimes that person is a fatherly uncle - other times, a nosy reporter - or even an intrepid scientist. In comic books, heroes seem to know a wide, wide range of people. In City of Heroes, players will get to know various people throughout the city - policemen, professors, store owners - and slowly become part of their lives. These people, called Contacts, will ask the heroes for their help - and in return, Contacts will reward heroes in their own unique way.

Sometimes, Contact requests will be simple: clean up the neighborhood. Other times, the Contact will ask the hero to undergo a dangerous mission across town. But there's also the chance that the Contact will involve the player in a much larger saga - a story arc - whose culmination won't be obvious to the hero until its climax.

The more a player does for a Contact, the more a Contact can offer - and that comes down to Inspirations and Specializations. Essentially, each Contact acts as a mini-store, that a hero can purchase things from with his hard-earned Influence. At first, a Contact might not offer anything to a hero - they're barely acquaintances, after all. But with a few adventures under a hero's belt, a Contact might be willing to help out a little. Every Contact comes with three levels of association - acquaintance, friend and confidant - and each level brings different tasks, missions and rewards.

Hundreds of Contacts inhabit the city. No two players will end up having the same set of Contacts; everyone's experience can be unique. The rewards given by one Contact aren't necessarily the same as another - which means that there's lots of opportunity for trading!