Chalky

I think when you get to a point in a thread where all anyone is talking about is nit picking the phrasing of your OP, it's probably a sensible place to call it a day.

When a thread gets to a point when there's more posting about how other people are posting than actual discussion of the topic, it's safe to say we probably squeezed out the last drop of content that anyone's going to want to read a long time ago.

Let me relieve you of the burden of having to spin your wheels any longer.

If someone wants to restart this topic, they can feel free to.  It's a perfectly valid discussion and I'm only closing this because it's getting pretty bogged down now.

Also, for those of you participating, please ensure that your posts contribute to the discussion.  Nobody wants to read a post that simply says that you've already explained something if you refuse to elaborate or explore the other person's opinion.  Don't post things that nobody wants to read.

Good idea for a thread, OP - at the very least it would be useful to know which servers regularly have this NPC available.

Reason on Cooldown, on 27 January 2013 - 05:21 PM, said:

I'm not sure what the first part here is trying to say - the fact that you can also farm random drops rather than getting random drops from the forge seems to be needlessly splitting hairs.

I doubt that anet will remove other sources of precursors because of the scavenger hunt.  There are big parts of the economy and in game activity being driven by the current sources - they want to make them easier to obtain, not stamp out this activity.  The jackpot aspect is no more "fair" at the moment and anet have never pointed at it as a reason to change the system.

jari, on 27 January 2013 - 01:30 AM, said:

I disagree, the price of t6 mats is moderated by the ability for people to farm them and mystic forge recipes for lesser materials.  If prices rise to the point where it becomes profitable to convert t5 to t6, people will do that and drive the price down again.  If t5 mat prices rise to the point where it's profitable to do t4 to t5, people will do that and keep the price low.  If these tiers become significantly more valuable, people will increase their intentional farming of them which will keep prices low.

That's not to say that lots more people making legendaries won't drive material prices up, this is totally the case, but the increase in price will not match the price of the precursors.

At the moment, the finite number of precursors is a bottleneck.  If there are 3 "The Legends" for sale in the entire world, there's nothing you can do besides pay their price or gamble for the rest of eternity throwing rares into the forge.  There is no control on that price.