Instances

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Instances are unique sessions for a world. Users can create and join instances of a world, and users in the same instance can perceive and interact with each other in the shared world space, but not with users in other instances of the same world. Instances themselves can have specific properties that affect who is allowed to join, invite, or see who is in the instance. They also have a region, which correlates to a real world server that handles passing connection information between the users in the session.

Instance types

There are many public and private environments of all genres that the user can explore. Users may also create and join various community groups to meet other users with mutual interests. Users can choose to join a public instance, or create a private instance to be alone or invite friends after adding them. The type of privacy of created instances is up to the user, and follows under the various tiers:

Public	A publicly listed instance to which anyone can join.
Friends+	Your friends, and their friends, and so on can join.
Friends	Only your friends may join; friends of friends are excluded.
Invite+	Users and friends of users must request to join your instance, unless you or an invited user's social status is set to "Join Me".
Invite	Users must send a join request to join you, unless your social status is set to "Join Me"; friends of friends are excluded.
Group	An instance that only members of a group, or specific roles within that group can access.
Group+	An instance hosted by a group, in which friends of group members, friends of their friends, and so on, can join. Group+ instances may have appointed group moderators to manage an instance. Being a member of the hosting group is not required to join the instance.
Group Public	A publicly listed instance, hosted by a group, to which anyone can join. Group Public instances may have appointed group moderators to manage an instance.

Who can join specific instance types

	Anyone	User friends	Invited user friends	Owner friends	Invited owner friends	Selected group role members	All group members
Public	✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️	-	-
Friends+		✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️	-	-
Friends				✔️	✔️	-	-
Invite+			✔️		✔️	-	-
Invite					✔️	-	-
Group				-	-	✔️
Group+		✔️	✔️	-	-	-	✔️
Group Public	✔️	✔️	✔️	-	-	-	✔️

Public instances

Public instances are considered easily accessible and include Public and Group Public types.

Private instances

Private instances require an invitation or a way to get in and include Friends, Friends+, Invite, Invite+, Group, and Group+ types.

Group instances

Group instances are created by a group and include Group Public, Group+, and Group types.

Regions

Whilst selecting an instance type, there are choices for varying regions to better optimize their experience. Choosing an instance closest to your location will see a decrease in ping, and ensuring a more stable connection to the instance, preventing disconnections and lag.

Historically, VRChat ran solely on the U.S. West server. On June 16, 2021, two extra regions - Europe, and Japan were added to the platform in the Regions update to distribute server load, and offset increasing user count. On December 1, 2021, VRChat added the U.S. East region, and renamed the current USA server to 'U.S. West'. Users are also encouraged to check VRChat's server status website or their VRChat Status account on social media for outages, or upon discovering issues when connecting to VRChat.

Token	Region	Location
usw	U.S. West	San José
use	U.S. East	Washington D.C.
eu	Europe	Amsterdam
jp	Japan	Tokyo

Instance owner

An owner of an instance is its creator and depending on its type can be either a user or a group. Instance owner cannot be changed.

Instance owners have permission to moderate users, including kicking, warning or muting them. In case of a group instance, moderators and their powers depend on group roles and permissions.

Instances of Public type do not have an instance owner leaving the only user with comparable powers being the world author.

Instance type	Public	Friends+	Friends	Invite+	Invite	Group Public	Group+	Group
Instance owner	None	User	User	User	User	Group	Group	Group

World author

The author of the world has the same core set of powers as the instance author, being able to moderate users in the form of kicking, warning and muting. The author has these additional powers depending on instance type.

Instance type	Public	Friends+	Friends	Invite+	Invite	Group Public	Group+	Group
Has powers	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	No