Talk:Dance of the Races

The quest start times don't currently seem to be tied to specific offsets from the hour mark, at least now (2013 winter festival), so the quest start time text should probably be changed.

There does seem to be a specific relationship between the quest times for the individual races, however. I have only observed this on Silverlode, and only for a few days, so I don't think it's solid enough to put in the main page.

What I've seen is that there appears to be just about enough time to complete the lesson and ride to another race's teacher in time for their lesson (using a horse and then swift travel from the nearest stable-master), if you do the quests in the order: elf-dwarf-man-hobbit. The man-hobbit timing is very tight if you have to ride back from the festival grounds near Bree and then from Michel Delving to the party tree in Hobbiton, the others seem to have adequate slack so that you arrive around the time they first offer the quest (this was on a 68-speed mount).

WMilliken (talk) 02:14, 1 January 2014 (UTC)

I timed the hobbit dance leader between two sessions. It looks like the "20 minutes" the leader talks about is between the end of once dance lesson and the start of the next, so the whole cycle is actually somewhere between 22 and 23 minutes, since the lesson itself takes something over two minutes. Thus the timing paragraph needs to be updated -- it's definitely not going to start on even 10-minute boundaries, and it looks like the quest timing doesn't even start on even minute boundaries. The cycle timing seems to be:

• dance leader starts offering the quest
• wait 5 minutes (very close to exactly 5 minutes from my measurement)
• dance leader performs the dance lesson (somewhere between 2 and 3 minutes long)
• wait 15 minutes
• start cycle over

This is probably more detail than the article needs. I think the timing text should change to:

"Dance lessons take place approximately every 22-23 minutes, and the quests are available for 5 minutes before the dance begins. When the Dance Leader starts, target the leader and follow their instructions using the commands /dance1, /dance2, or /dance3 as they instruct you. There are about 5-10 seconds to perform each step."

WMilliken (talk) 06:37, 1 January 2014 (UTC)

Wrong Times

All times seem to be wrong. And i even doubt that they are constant. I got those times today: Shire 14:14, Thorin’s Hall 14:43 and 15:05, Bree-Land 15:14, Duillond 15:24. Could you collect other times? --QNo (talk) 13:41, 2 September 2016 (UTC)

The specific times change every release, they always have. They are approximately correct, probaly +/- 5 or 10 minutes in my experience.

Is it worth the effort? Personally, I don't do festivals, so for me -- no, but others may feel differently.

Wm Magill - Valamar - OTG/OTC - talk 00:54, 3 September 2016 (UTC)

I do festivals. I found it important for my minstrel that he should know every possible dance. So i relied on the given times, and i lost a lot of time. If it is too much work to give correct times, there should be no times at all. So i propose to remove the beginning times. QNo (talk) 10:38, 3 September 2016 (UTC)

I have no issues with removing the start times. They have apparently only been there since U17.

Don't forget that the only way the WIKI has of knowing the 'correct' times is when some player actually observes and times them. We have no access to information from Turbine about anything. Everything on the WIKI is based on player experience -- which is then writtend down!

Also consider that Turbine did not set the times so that you could run from one to another. Or at least I don't believe they did.

The probable original starting times are probably "0/5/10/15" not "0/5/10/17" and that each dance session is probably 20 minutes - my guess is that the deviations are the result of WHEN the festival is "turned on." Which is also to say that it might vary from server to server -- AND with the new hardware, it is quite possible that the mechanic that was used to initiate/time the various events is actually no longer the same. Put another way. I always assume that all of the timers are relative and not absolute, especially with regard to wall-clock time.

Wm Magill - Valamar - OTG/OTC - talk 18:45, 3 September 2016 (UTC)