The Queue: The Grand Expedition Yak had a good run

I am admittedly a sucker for many things, and the new Grizzly Hills Packmaster Mount includes several enticing aspects that’ll likely make me crack open my wallet to purchase. For one thing I love bears (don’t get me wrong — yaks are very cool — but I’m a bigger fan of bears of the non-Chicago variety). For another, the Grummles on the Grand Expedition Yak have a tendency to annoy me because they only have about a half dozen lines they repeat frequently; this is the same reason I don’t use Ban Lu on my monk. Finally, who doesn’t love a bear mount?

Trivia time: Transmogrification was not one of the original services provided by the Grand Expedition Yak. What did it replace? Answer in the outro!

All that said if the Packmaster only lets you repair and doesn’t give you the ability to sell items then forget it, I need to clean my bags way more often than I need to repair or fix my transmog.

While I wait for other players to determine this info for me, let’s answer some questions!

You won’t be able to get the Elite PVP items (in fact you may not be able to get them anymore even with the currency as the season is over) but the PVE items (which are Heroic-tier appearance) will remain available forever or until the servers are finally shut down. There’s no reason to hold on to it, unless you want to start farming the Heroic appearance and spend it on whatever piece you need last.

I haven’t gotten a chance to really look at the Season 1 stuff because I’ve been busy with a different game — more on this below — and also because the World Boss I expected to be up this week was replaced by a different World Boss and I’ve been scrambling to get the info together. But I hear there’s delves to delve and gear to earn, so I’m sure it’s fantastic probably maybe.

I’ve played Animal Crossing for all of 15 minutes so I’m not sure if I have a favorite, but since I’m fond of my kneecaps I’m going to say Tom Nook.

To quote Apu Nahasapeemapetilon: The NY Mets are my favorite squadron! (Actually it’s the Tampa Rays but I wasn’t given them as a choice so I went with a Simpsons quote)

So far so good; even though all the characters got nerfed (they really belabored the explanation) it feels the same as Persona 3 Reload combat. The story does feels abbreviated, and if you take a drink every time the new character says “sister” you’ll die of alcohol poisoning pretty quickly.

I still think it was overpriced, and putting the only story content at the end of a Season Pass is just a poor practice. In the end though we’ll see if the story moves me as much as the original did; if so I may consider it worth it. If not, I’ll probably kick myself for not spending the money on Yars Rising instead.

I mean Pippin seems like the easiest answer, right? But it depends on when the fighting takes place. Early on, yeah, I’d probably go for Pippin. But later? Definitely Frodo. The dude is ragged by the time he gets to Mount Doom and can barely put one foot in front of the other.

I’d just have to make sure he doesn’t go for the Ring during the fight otherwise it’s light’s out for me and well, pretty much all of Middle-Earth at that point. Maybe I should stick with Pippin …

I’ve already mentioned Yars Rising as one I’m going to wait on for a little bit as I’m busy playing Persona 3 Reload: Operation Aigis. Metaphor: ReFantazio is coming out in exactly one month and I’m definitely playing that on day one, so that means I have to figure what to do with Diablo 4 Vessel of Hatred which is releasing earlier that week. I still need to get back to Trinity Fusion and Without a Voice which I’ve started recently but haven’t made much progress with, so I’ll likely push off Yars Rising until after those.

Finally, I’ve been holding off on Shin Megami Tensei 5 Vengeance because I knew I wouldn’t have time to play it when it came out over the summer (when I was in MMO heck) and also because I wanted to wait for it to go on sale. I plan to get to it this year though — after all the rest I just named.

Abby Lewis

(I’ve heard rumors that there are signs of her in The War Within, in case you’re wondering why I’m not playing as much WoW as usual)

Ok, after confirmation that the Grizzly Hills Packmaster does allow you to vend items, I’ve added it to my collection. Sorry Grand Expedition Yak, you’ve done a lot of good the past twelve years, but it’s time for you and your Grummle companions to get some much-needed rest.

Trivia Answer: originally the Grand Expedition Yak provided Reforging services!

Everyone have a great day, and be sure to invite Mystic Birdhat to a party ask plenty of questions for Matt!