Dragon Festival 2008

The Dragon Festival 2008 is an event taking place over the weekend of July 3, 2008. It is announced in the Guild Wars login announcements:

Cantha Commemorates the Dragon Festival ''This weekend, Canthans celebrate the historic Dragon Festival. Enjoy quests and games and prizes, oh my! Visit the Boardwalk, jump into the Dragon Arena, score cool prizes, too. The event takes place in Shing Jea Monastery starting at Noon Pacific (-7 GMT) on Thursday, July 3 and it wraps up at 11:59 PM Pacific on Sunday, July 6.''

Details
Just like the previous years, this festival follows the same mission arc of recreating the first year's festival.

Once again Victory Tokens are dropped and can be traded for a unique mask at the end of the event for 250 tokens. Extra tokens can be exchanged for  various consumable items. This year's mask is the Grasping Mask.

Redecorated towns

 * Shing Jea Monastery
 * Kaineng Center

Minigames

 * Dragon Arena
 * Rollerbeetle Racing
 * Shing Jea Boardwalk
 * Dragon Nest
 * Nine Rings
 * Rings of Fortune

Quests
Imperial Guard Hanso (in Shing Jea Monastery)
 * The Rampaging Yetis
 * The Shrine of Maat
 * A Strange Request
 * Darkness at Kaitan

NPCs

 * Captain Rujiyo
 * Imperial Guard Hanso
 * Victory Token Collectors
 * Sheng Yi
 * Seiji
 * During Dragon Festival 2008 Finale (Sunday July 6th, see times below)
 * Emperor Kisu
 * Imperial Sorcerers
 * Monday, July 7th to Sunday, July 13th, 2008
 * Imperial Supply Master Kagno appears and remains in Shing Jea Monastery to exchange Victory Tokens for the Grasping Mask.
 * The Victory Token collectors, Seiji and Sheng Yi, will also remain with Master Kagno.

Missions
The missions, which are available at the times listed in the external links, are obtained from Captain Rujiyo in Shing Jea Monastery.

All times are listed in Pacific Daylight Time, which is -7 GMT. Missions will be available for 30 minutes.

Dragon Festival 2008 Finale
The finale for the 2008 Dragon Festival starts on Sunday, July 6 and is held every two hours beginning at 2:00 AM (-7 GMT). The last event or rotation will be held at 11:59 PM.

The emperor arrives and speaks for a bit. During this time if you have 250 tokens in your inventory, they will be exchanged for a Grasping Mask, even if you already have a grasping mask. If you have multiple stacks of tokens in your inventory, you will get multiple masks, so plan ahead accordingly. Be sure to talk to Ludor the Festival hat maker so all of your characters will be able to use the mask and it won't take up space in storage when you are done wearing it.

A short time later, Celestial Charges will start raining down. The goal of this mini-game is to get the charges to the Imperial Sorcerers before the actors dressed as a Grasp of Insanity intercept you. Intercepted characters will be killed and resurrected in the open field by storage. For each charge you collect you will receive a Victory Token. If you are in a district where the players collect more celestial charges than the Grasp of Insanity you will receive 1 Festival Prize every ~70 seconds for the next 15 minutes for a total of 12 to 27 (depending on unknown factors) with a mode of 13.

Hints
 * Use a speed buff, such as Crème Brûlée to help outrun the actors. The buff will wear off if you get killed.
 * Drop your Celestial Charge if it looks like an actor will intercept you. They will run by and you can pick it up and continue to an Imperial Sorcerer.