Dragon Festival?

Just wondering if this will actually happen? It's supposed to be around the start of summer, and according to the wiki the 2010 event started on the 1st of july which is only a few days away.

Just curious as i've heard no mention of it here, in-game or on the login screen announcement (or on the events page of the GW website, which normally announces them in advance).

Last year it was announced on Tuesday June 28th. Maybe they'll have it up later today.

Eh, pretty sure it will be happening this year. They can't just skip a festival.

Besides, in the past few years it was announced with relatively short notice, so I wouldn't worry

The Dragon Festival is ALWAYS held during the 4th of July Celebration. Since the 4th lands on a Monday, I would think they'll post that it runs all weekend, ending the 5th or 6th. Although, they MAY let it run all week, to give more players a greater chance of sitting on the rings, or playing the Dragon Arena (or whatever it's called), following their behavior regarding making things easier for current players to max their Halls in preparation for GW2. (WOW, not sure of the structure of that last sentence!)

For those who want to know what events are coming up, just look at the previous years weekend events. They follow the same pattern each year with the exception of festival reduxs.

Yes, the Dragon Festival will be this weekend unless they suddenly decide to change everything which is doubtful.

Always read the Archive[2010] on Weekend Events on GuildWiki it's pretty much to the letter T right, except for a few weekends at the beginning of the year. But other then that everythings the same.

For the newer players looking to catch up a little in some areas.
Some festivals have collectors that want certain items.

Check out what the collectors want for each festival and plan ahead.
Its pretty easy to put all these things aside in storage then cash in at the event.

Dragon festival is more mission based but Halloween wintersday in July and later in December all have collectors, so start now and cash in later.

yeah should (there we go with that word again) be this weekend with the finale on sunday--and a new mask!! (cant wait for that).....and yeah, they have been pretty lax about putting up the announcements of events anything before wednesday (and sometime after the event has started )...guess they know that a majority of us know where to find the information or can remember from previous years----

I would appreciate getting some tip exchange going for festivals in general, and the Dragon Festival in particular.

Here's what I know happens during festivals:

* Certain towns have special decorations: Ascalon, Lion's Arch, Kaineng, Kamadan and Shing Jea Monastery.
* There are special mini-games available in select towns. Winter festivals usually have a form of funny team PvP (Dwayna vs Grenth) where your bar is filled with funny skills emulating a snowball fight. Most festivals have Rollerbeetle Racing. The Shing Jea Boardwalk is a special area within the Monastery that becomes available during festivals and offers a few games (worm chasing, ring sitting, anything else?)
* During the annual celebration of GW festival the Celestial being of the year, as per Chinese calendar, visits Shing Jea. Usually you have a chance of gaining a gold minipet in the form of that Celestial.
* You can get a special festival hat during a festival. You only need to get it on one character, because the hat maker NPCs can replicate it after that for any of your characters.
* The special items you can get in abundance during festivals are: sweet, drunk and party consumables; surprise gifts that when opened give more consumables or a rare chance for an interesting item; tokens (victory, lunar etc.) that can be exchanged at special festival NPCs for the above stuff (gifts, cons, hats). Tokens are usually awarded from mini-games and special festival quests.
* Speaking of which, most festivals have several special quests that can be completed only once per character and which also reward the above stuff. Usually there's a requirement of at least level 5 (so you can't farm them easily) and sometimes they're only available on the Shing Jea island, so your characters need to have traveled to Kaineng and made their way to Shing Jea island (via Bejunkan Pier, Seitung Harbor and the short trip to the Monastery).

General tips for festivals:
* Due to large quantities of consumables being available, the prices drop. It is considered the best time to buy in bulk and attempt to maximize your drunk/party/sweet titles.
* Good opportunity to get a rare mini, a festival hat (you can't get this in any other way if you missed a festival!).
* You can make some money by selling the tokens/consumables/gifts you get.
* You can have lots of fun running around and playing games.

For the Dragon Festival specifically, there are two special types of content: repeatable and non-repeatable quests. The non repeatable quests can be done once per character, and the repeatable ones have a window of time in which they can be repeated, then you can't do them anymore.

This part is from Canthan New Year which coincides with the real world Chinese New Year, not the Dragon Festival.

Sorry if it wasn't clear, I didn't mean to imply it was.

The Dragon Festival will start tomorrow, Thursday 30th June, and end on Sunday 3rd July. We'll update the event webpage tomorrow with more details.

thanks Stéphane! Now I can make real plans to be there for the weekend (more time for my lucky/unlucky titles )
....is there going to be a new mask???????(hopehopehope)

Tips for Dragon Festival:

* Get as many characters to Shing Jea Island as possible.
* Be sure to have 250 victory tokens for a mask.
* If converting victory tokens to sweet points, ignore sugary blue drinks because creme brulees offer triple the points at only twice the cost.

That seems awfully short compared to other years. Will we still be able to receive a mask via 250 victory tokens after the emperor's visit?

Why bother? He's been handing out the same mask for a couple of years now.

I figure he miscalculated his initial order or those masks and is stuck with boatloads of them somewhere in Kaineng City's harbor. Only his kind heart prevent him going all corporate on our asses and dumping the masks into the sea for it would mean thousands of enslaved Tengu have toiled in sweatshops for nothing.

I believe you have the wrong festival--the dragon festival has a different mask every year (06-dragon, 07-demon, 08-grasp, 09-imperial dragon, 10-sinister dragon)....you might be thinking of the canthan new year which does have the same mask every year--thats at about the same time as chinese new year.

Yes you'll still be able to collect the mask during the week following the Dragon Festival.

Can we expect the event to start cleanly at Noon Pacific or are there any concerns that would cause a delay?

It's started. On Boardwalk now.

Hanok

@cataphract & cosyfiep:

I think the implication is that the 2009 and 2010 masks looked awfully, awfully similar. True, they were two different masks...but it would be nice to see something radically distinct this year.