From 1-5, I don't think there's many real story arcs, you tend to blow by those levels too fast to notice.
However, there are a chain of zones that with a series of contacts should get you from 1-50.
5-15: The Hollows (has had serious improvements. See if you can run the trial!)
15-25: Faultline (some of the best arcs in the game)
20-30: Striga Isle (in case you need more XP. Set up a hospital and teleporter in your base. Culminates in a Task Force)
25-35: Croatoa (also ends in a Task Force)
35+: Rikti War Zone, Cimerora
And for the record, many City of Heroes contacts (outside the above zones) share the same story arcs as well.
Mission contacts are structured very differently in CoH than CoV. They resemble more traditional contact trees from older RPGs than the Broker/Paper mission structure of CoV.
This lists most of the contact and missions found in CoH. Story Arcs are noted with a book icon. The "standard" contact tree generally gives you 5 contacts, one per origin type, every five levels. Then there are contacts in the various story zones, Prof Backfire listed those areas.
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There are many story arcs for heroes, but one thing you should be aware of that is different from villains is that the hero contacts like to make you travel. While most villain contacts will typically send you within their own zone, hero contacts have no problem sending you from Peregine Island to Kings Row, and unlike Villains, you don't have a single transport that takes you to the majority of zones you want to go to.
The Epic AT has it's own contact that will get you started with some missions as well as your specific contact depending on your origin. There are some unique missions there, depending on your contact, and they will pass you on to another that you can use to continue on. Prof Backfire also listed a good number of Zone Arc that you can run, and some of those are quite entertaining. Your regular contacts will send you in to those zones to run missions, but they are not mandatory.
I've been enjoying playing a villain, particularly the mastermind. However, a friend who plays hero-side almost has his first 50 (I've been teaming with him in RWZ), so he's about to start over with a Kheldian. So, I've decided to create and play a hero for awhile. I'll also mention I'm a roleplayer who enjoys the story arcs on villain side. Most, if not all, contacts have a story arc of some sort.
I was looking through the CoH wiki and can't find near as many story arc contacts. All I see are random missions with no real storyline or importance. These missions are even shared by multiple contacts, if I read and understand correctly.
I figure I'm missing something, so I'll ask here. Do you know of a chain of story arcs that will keep me going throughout my career? In other words, what are the good story arcs for each bracket (1-4, 5-9, etc).
Thanks.