The Queue: It is my birthday

Welcome back to The Queue, the daily Q&A column in which the WoW Insider team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft. You get another year of Matthew Rossi (@MatthewWRossi)! That's our present to you.

Yes, it's my birthday. What does that mean? Well, it means I'm a year older and not dead, which is pretty sweet. I definitely enjoy that part. Its sort of a tradition around here that I post pictures of myself with my shirt off, and so I tried to find you a nice shirtless header picture so that you could admire my beast-like hide. Sadly, I couldn't find one I could make work for the Queue's header. And so, I instead present you with me, sadly clothed, but with long hair and smiling.

And they named the cat Sasquatch. I got some nice reviews for my birthday, what did you get me? You didn't get me anything, did you? No, no, that's fine. I'm fine. I didn't need anything, it's cool. We're cool. You can see me smiling up there, can't you?

For my birthday I decided to experiment with soliciting and answering questions from twitter. I did also answer questions from yesterday's Queue. And one statement.

grpcaro asks:

Where can i find the tauren myths to read?? i mean on internet not in the game

Well, for starters, I wrote two big ol' KYL's about tauren origins and history. Once you get done with those, head on over to wowpedia and check out their tauren mythology page.

Tungdil asks:

There was been tons of threads on the forums about ganking/corpse camping. What are your thoughts on it? Is it harassment, true PvP, or somthing in between? I am on a PvP server and have never really had any issues, but it seems to be a hot topic.

Well, I leveled to 90 on a PvP server this time around, so here's my take on it -- ganking and corpse camping are part of the PvP experience and you have to endure them as part and parcel of that experience, but when you're a lone prot warrior trying to level through Jade Forest while sixteen opposite faction players jump on your head and spend literally hours killing you, it gets old really fast. Like, Sonic the Hedgehog running on Jay Garrick's hat while Jay runs on the Cosmic Treadmill with both Barry Allen and Wally West fast.

PvP servers exist for players who want the experience of always on PvP, they're created and designed so that players can engage in that kind of behavior. It's neither admirable nor even particularly interesting to sit there killing the same person every time they attempt to res their character, but if you don't want that then don't roll or transfer to a PvP server. I realized after a while that I really didn't want that experience, that it was making me bitter and angry and vindictive, willing to drop out of the air onto a level 86 warlock and grind his or her face into the ground at a moment's notice.

I didn't want to be that guy anymore, and I was relieved when it was no longer an option. But is it true PvP? It absolutely is. If you're on a PvP server, you can always get ganked, and there's a PvP solution to that problem, namely getting some people together and giving that ganker a series of dirt naps. Eventually the res timer will make him or her think better of it.

JeffLaBowski asks:

Q4tQ: How does Rockwell, a relatively unknown pop singer, get a superstar to sing backup on his debut single And can you guess that superstar who did the background vocals?

Rockwell got Michael Jackson and Jermaine Jackson to sing on "Somebody's Watching Me" because he is Kenneth Gordy, son of Motown founder and CEO Berry Gordy, who signed the Jackson Five to his label. Kenny knew the Jacksons from his childhood and it was thus easy for him to ask them for assistance on his debut single. Interestingly enough, Kenny Gordy's brother is Redfoo, of the act LMFAO and his nephew, Skyler, also known as SkyBlu, is the other member of LMFAO and thus the Gordy family is responsible for the pandaren male dance.

In other words, the nepotism that brought us Michael Jackson as a backup singer on Rockwell's first single also brought us hours of dancing panda fun.

@cutaia_net asks:

What will happen to my valor points in patch 5.2?

Upon the plain Vigridr your valor points shall meet and do battle for three days and four nights against the underserpent Nidhogg that dwells below the roots of Lerador which is Yggdrasil, the tree immortal, with nine worlds in branches and roots it holds the path for Ratatosk to climb. And there shall your valor points be no more. Your valor points shall die, drinking deep of the red loosed from the wineskin of heroes hearts, the deep draught of player's mead.

Or maybe they'll just get reset. No way of knowing yet.

@FlyDraenei asks:

any word on the appear offline option? Sometimes I want to toon hop w/o spamming friends with on/offline notifications.

The last I heard was this post from September 2012. Sadly, there are no Norse squirrel gods involved.

@Verdthandi asks:

What sorts of things will the Red Cross do with the donations they receive from our Cinder Kitten purchases? Related: is there anything that is anywhere near as cute as the Cinder Kitten in the World of Warcraft?

These kind of things. The Red Cross had to outlay a great deal of its resources to help people in need of food, shelter, medical attention and your donations help them recover so that they can help future people in need. Not only do people affected by the storm still need our help (and make no mistake, they absolutely do) but if the Red Cross is to be ready to help with whatever comes down the road, donations efforts like the Cinder Kitten are of value.

Cuteness is in the eye of the beholder. The Cinder Kitten reminds me of my cat Sasquatch, so I do agree it is very cute. But I can't speak for everyone.

@dwisms asks:

Lorewise, how can Taurens tolerate the Goblins in the horde? I've always seen them as opposite sides of the spectrum

Tauren are a very tolerant people. Remember, it was the tauren who helped convince Thrall to let the forsaken in (albeit with Magatha's help) and Baine even put aside vengeance in order to keep the Horde strong and unified. A tauren who concerns himself with what the other Horde races do is trying to set a good example. Yes, it may be wasted on goblins, but that's the kind of people the shu'halo are.

Also, goblins are crazy short. It's easy to overlook them.

DethDrummer88 states:

Considering the game has gotten worse (for me) as time goes on, pretty much every "improvement" made to the game has had the opposite effect. We can go back to any place in WoW's history and it will be a better game than it is now. Each time you go back, the game is better than the previous place in time. This holds true across the board. There have been no improvements made to World of Warcraft; only deterioration.

Yeah, I know this is a troll, and a blatantly obvious troll at that. But it's my birthday, and I felt like addressing you directly, DethDrummer88. I'm going to call you Deth from now on, I hope you don't mind.

Deth, we've both been playing a while. Now, in all seriousness, how can you possibly argue that the game that released in 2004 was objectively better in every single way than every single patch, expansion, and hotfix that followed? Hell, there were crippling game bugs, servers went down like elevators with broken cables, Maraudon and Dire Maul didn't even release at game's launch... It's so ridiculously absurd to make the claim that every single possible second of the past eight years was better than the ones that followed it that it would be like arguing that the game was better in beta than on live, and better in closed beta than open beta, and better in the friends and family alpha -- where does World of Warcraft's backwards perfectibility end? Was it better before they started making it? I guess I can sympathize with the notion that the game was one of limitless potential and possibility before anyone started working on it, but it's not really a feasible idea.

By your logic, the game has been in an non-stop decline since release. If that's the case, why did you keep playing past patch 1.2 since by your argument it immediately became a worse game than it had been? I know you stated that this was true for yourself (I saw 'for me' in parenthesis up there) but that doesn't even make sense, due to the fact that you've stated you played and enjoyed into Wrath of the Lich King on other posts you've made. Yes, I checked out your posting history. If you enjoyed Wrath, why did you enjoy it when it was worse than TBC, which was itself worse than vanilla?

Deth, this wasn't just hyperbole, but it was hyperbole that damaged your argument and its credibility. You probably have legitimate concerns about World of Warcraft and how its changed since you've been playing, but by framing it in such rigid and demonstratably false absolutes you make it nigh-impossible to take what you're saying seriously. Every improvement made to the game has had the opposite effect? So leveling past 60, new zones to explore, new dungeons to run and raids to raid, everything introduced since patch 1.1 from dungeon finder to the dungeon journal to battleground PvP to transmogrification to Real ID and battletags, it's all been a detriment to the game? There's been nothing good in WoW for eight years? Nothing at all?

I'm sorry, but the fact that you bother to post here at all means that can't possibly be true. An MMO doesn't achieve what World of Warcraft has over the past eight years by constantly failing, human beings are just not that forgiving.

And that's the Queue for today, December 7th, also known as All Matt's Day. Enjoy it responsibly. Buy my book. No, I'm not too proud to beg. Don't make me smile at you again.

Have questions about the World of Warcraft? The WoW Insider crew is here with The Queue, our daily Q&A column. Leave your questions in the comments, and we'll do our best to answer 'em!