RuneScape:Wiki Post/Editorials/Quest Review - A Void Dance

Having finished the (rather short) Quiet Before the Swarm, I had been expecting a second low-level quest as a sequel, perhaps an intermediate quest with a puzzle, much like Elemental Worksshop 1 and 2 (not EW3 though, I hated it), so it was a moderate shock when the news article informed me that A Void Dance was an Experienced quest with several level 50 skills. I actually had to train something to start this quest, unlike the prequel, and that put off completion for a while.

Nonetheless, I was eager to continue, and started the quest, after around a week, and, naturally, the first challenging obstacle was a puzzle. Not a good puzzle either. Not a riddle, or a logic problem, like I'd seen in Quiet Before the Swarm, but a very odd and tedious puzzle, consisting of kicking barrels into formation...much like a slider puzzle! But, as I quickly discovered, this was no ordinary damned slider puzzle! At any point, if you made two wrong moves, you couldn't undo them. You had to either undo the latest mistake, or start over. Whoever created that was an idiot - oh wait, it's Alex F again, the one who wrote Buyers and Cellars, well done, Alex, you've done it again - so it took hours to unscramble the boxes. Wait...Jessika and Korasi can help me to move all the full barrels back to their starting positions, so why can't they pick up one barrel and carry it? What's that burning smell? Stupidity!

Then, we had to go over to Karamja, for some more following of rather obvious purple tracks. (Why did we have to look for them? They're more obvious than a Mithril Dragon in a herd of sheep! And that's what you needed 46 Hunter for? Hmm.) We find out that - naturally - the stupid thing's been pest-napped from under our noses. So obviously, we don't rush to Commodore Tyr and explain that someone's got a dangerous pest, we look at its hole, find some splinters, and then visit the chemist.

Then, there's a far more original puzzle, the only part of the quest I enjoyed, although I didn't understand how it fitted into the story, or why we're suddenly doing the chemist's work for him, while Korasi and Jessika watch us working. Don't offer to help, that's fine, I can simultaneously work machinery, mix chemicals and check pressure. Forgiving the slight logic flaw there, the puzzle itself was very good, not so taxing that you hurl the mouse at the screen, but not easy enough to be done within seconds, and it actually required attention, unlike the previous puzzle, which required little/no effort, and could be done with trial and error. Not here, with this puzzle, a mistake has repercussions, and you can fail the entire puzzle...what? You can fix it without resetting? Excellent!

So, we now know what the wooden shards are - quite why we assumed they were relevant, I have no idea, but they were, so thank goodness for that - so now we should inform Commodore Tyr of our findings, and lead another mission to help out at Fala - oh wait, we're going straight there. Don't worry, I'm sure Commodore Tyr is happy to have no idea what his agents are doing. Next challenge: Ali Tist. Oh, that's an amazing pun. I'm killing myself laughing. Ali Tist sells unsolveable puzzle boxes. Nope, he doesn't even say what you need to do, you're meant to just know, somehow. Oh, what a surprise, they're full of pest...stuff... After that, a treasure trail, hooray! Maybe I'll get something good, instead of firelighters...oh. A trap door. What an amazing reward. And what's behind the trap door? A badly-guarded Black Knight storehouse. Now we're being asked morality questions (I can imagine the future quests..."Don't kill me!" "You slaughtered my friends, but hey, that's cool") and somehow, workers can't hear their comrades being murdered. Don't tell me, the Kinshra are employing deaf people! Then some more minor annoyances, and a pathetic boss fight that I won within seconds. Now can we tell Commodore Tyr?

So, all in all, a terrible puzzle and senseless plotlining. Makes you wonder if Alex F is actually trying to make bad quests. If you want my advice, this is one Dance to avoid.

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 * By: Real Not Pure

Do you think A Void Dance would be/is a fun quest? Yes! I'm neutral. No, not at all.