GOOD CoH Writing

I'll echo Faultline, and I enjoyed the Hollows after the revamp quite a bit as well.

I still like the Freaklympics, just because it strikes me as something the Freakshow would definitely do.

Croatoa, for as old as it is, is still a good storyline. I like how they make the point that all these mythological beings popping up is a little unusual, rather than the norm. There are a few annoying as hell individual missions in it though.

More recently, I liked pretty much all of the added story arcs in the 20s. (Nance, Adair, Cooling, MacArthur, Ross, etc.)

I enjoyed the Praetorian storylines immensely. Mostly I liked the fact that there is no clear cut "good guys" or "bad guys" in the entire storyline. Any person in any of the arcs could be viewed as heroic or villainous depending on the viewpoint you're looking at them from.

And yes, I actually DID like the majority of the writing in the SSAs. Admittedly, there WERE a few "Buh-wha?!" moments, but I enjoyed how the Phalanx fell apart after decades of being steadfast heroes (and really it was only a few characters that did). You saw the nasty side of some of the characters that you didn't see much of before.

Sister Psyche is willing to kill, Manticore is an arrogant, selfish jerk, and Statesman had a huge case of complete disconnect with the people he was supposed to be protecting. None of that was especially discordant with what I knew of the characters.

Oh, and Manticore pretty much caused the whole mess with his selfishness, which fit perfectly with my impression of the character. He's a spoiled rich boy who is only a hero because he wanted revenge on the guy who killed his father. I would not be surprised in the slightest to see him get booted out of the Phalanx and turn into a true vigilante or outright villain after all this. If his wife ends up dying or pulling a Dark Phoenix, it's virtually guaranteed.

I don't want to derail the thread with discussion of it, but the biggest reason Wade's plan succeeded was because of Manticore's arrogance.

I've loved the newer redside contacts, Dean, Leonard, and Vincent Ross.

My favorite arc in the game is probably still Seer Marino's but she's closely rivaled by the entire RWZ storyline, which I play on almost every character. I also rarely skip Darrin Wade, and I actually quite like Ashley's Midnighter arc.

Doc Buzzsaw and Vernon Von Grun's dialogue is hysterical. I also fondly remember meeting Operative Vargas for the first time. And I'll echo the sentiments that Themari and Phipps have probably the darkest arcs, particularly Phipps, IMO, because he's a non-powered, "normal" guy who is just utterly loathsome and disturbingly adept at being so.

Turning to Praetoria, I thought Praetor Sinclair was particularly well-written. In fact, all the power path arcs I've played have stood out for me.

I'll have to thank the thread for reminding me about Faultine. I don't play blueside too often, but I do like that storyline. Will have to play it again on my new defender, and perhaps the Hollows as well.

As a returning player, I'll say I very much enjoyed the 'Shining Stars' arc blueside. When I found the Dr. Graves arc redside, my first thought was that it was largely a mirror of the Shining Stars arc and discounted it for that reason.

Playing through it again, though, I think my initial reaction was a mistake -- most of the characters in the redside arc seem better defined than their corresponding blueside NPCs and their dialogue, while being maybe a bit cliche'd in points, was more interesting on replay. Zephyr particularly had me in stitches with:

I'M

THE

FREAKIN'

WIND

DUDE

I'll nominate Dr. Graves for 'best quest-giver dialog' in all of CoX, not just redside. I feel as though I can hear his rattling, sarcasm-laced voice in my head when I play the arc. It's quite cool.

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Pauper