wintersday finale questions

http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Wintersday/Finale

3 questions:

1. The page say it "runs every 3 hours". From what hour is the timing based? 6am eastern? is there some guild wars clock available?

2. How long is the window open to play once the finale begins?

3. Who do I speak to in order to play the game? Thanks.

1: This is the finale event on january 1th. the wiki has a schedule (at the right) with the times in pst and gmt: http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Wintersday_2012#Schedule

2: The final starts exactly at that time in district 1. There is a small delay for each district afterwards. The finale takes bout 15 minutes and you need bout 15 candy cane shards (more is better) to help and play.

3: to participate in the finale you need to stand in one of the 18 rings in either kamadan or lion's arch. participating also helps for the lucky/unlucky titles. The corner rings are best for that. You dont need to talk to anyone.

To get candy cane shards, participate in any festival activity or just play the game.

Actually the DvG rings have a different payscale than the Canthan 9 Rings, and the center circle has the best average payout, corner is the worst.

Thats true if only going for lucky points. If your going for lost bets, corner is the best. Where in 9 rings corners are 100% the best due to the scaling system, in the DvG rings, corners are on average still the best if aiming for both titles.

The Lucky track requires 10 times as many points as Unlucky (10:1). Even the center ring in DvG generates points at a ratio of only 2.7:1, so even the best "Lucky" option gives you proportionally 3.7 times as much Unlucky progress. Playing outside of center ring is only optimal for people who have a correspondingly high imbalance of title progress. So in case people were wondering:

Center Ring: Progresses Unlucky 3.7 times as fast as Lucky
Side Ring: Progresses Unlucky 5 times as fast as Lucky
Corner Ring: Progresses Unlucky 6.7 times as fast as Lucky

Short version: Every ring in DvG heavily favors Unlucky progress, but among the choices the center ring is the most balanced and most profitable. All other things being equal, I'd call that the "best" choice. The corner ring is the most unbalanced and least profitable. All other things being equal, I'd call that the "worst" choice.