You know them. We know them. Let's just cut to the chase and list them:

The Cap'n

Aye aye, Cap'n!

The Cap'n is the person who makes things work. Whether he's the guild leader, or just leading tonight's raid, he's the man keeping everything running smoothly, and the person to whom everyone looks for advice because he clearly knows what's going on. The Cap'n knows exactly what the guild needs, and has pretty much cleared his entire social calendar to make sure the guild advances.

Note that the Cap'n is not necessarily the person officially in charge. This tends to cause some friction in the clan when it happens, because the person giving orders expects to be listened to, but everyone keeps looking to the Cap'n as the true leader. You'll save yourself a lot of trouble if you just officialize your Cap'n, otherwise your figurehead leader might start to resent him.

Sammy Spreadsheet

"You'd achieve a 0.3% increase in DPS by replacing that
sword with a Coldrage Dagger"

Sammy Spreadsheet has spreadsheets for everything. Anyone who plays WOW seriously has done the numbers enough to realize that getting those purple pieces of armor is better than having the regular stuff. Most of them have read up a bit on the damage per second comparisons of different skills, and tried to optimize their build somewhat. This guy goes way beyond that, and has spreadsheets for everything. There has never been a min/maxer with more notes written on powergaming than this guy.

That's why it's completely baffling that he has no gaming skills whatsoever. He can tell you exactly what armor you should be wearing, and has his talents assigned in the absolutely optimal distribution, but he can't seem to kill anything more difficult than a Murlock without help. A prime example of why knowledge without skill is not good enough.

Non-Present Ned

Here he isn't.

The raid was scheduled for 8pm. It's now 8:15, and your main healer hasn't shown up. And yes, it's always a healer or a tank, because if someone is going to simply not show up, it's going to be one of the essential classes. Even if you move the raid time to accomodate him, Non-Present Ned is going to stay true to his name and never be there. He'll sometimes have a good excuse, but it won't matter.

Not that it's much better when he does show up. You'll be in the middle of a raid, and he'll be playing flawlessly. And then you'll get ready to tackle the big boss, and rush in and suddenly notice that Ned seems to have gone AFK without telling anyone. Again. You'd drop him from your raid group if it weren't for the fact that when he's actually there, he's so damn good.

Mommy/Daddy

"A is for Azeroth, B is for Battleground..."

Yes, it's true that not all people who play WOW are lonely nerds who have never been in a relationship. Many of them have fallen in love, had sex, and even had families. And this is a shame, because it seriously diminishes the experience for everyone else to constantly hear, "I think if we head over Daddy's busy right now to Stormwind then we PUT THAT DOWN! can get the next DAMMIT sorry I have to go clean this up."

This wouldn't be so bad if the kids weren't ruining your gaming experience even when they were asleep. Because you know that while the rest of your guild is talking about how awesome Watchmen was, or the hilarious Colbert Report clip last night, the Mommy is going to continually blather about her kids. Worse yet, she's so used to talking to kids, she'll sometimes get that tone in her voice. You know the one.

The Grizzled Vet

The amount of time he's spent playing dwarfs yours.

This hardcore player plays a minimum of 5 nights per week, and has been playing for years. He could be a hardcore PvPer, who logs on every night just to crush his enemies and hear their lamentations. Or he could be a hardcore raider, participating in 3-hour 20-man raids every single night. Either way, he plays all the time, and has been playing for longer than anyone else in your guild.

Don't worry if you forget that, because he'll remind you every few minutes. Whether he's complaining about having to respec because his old Hunter used to be invincible, or whether he's telling you how much better his first guild was, the Grizzled Vet will never let you forget that he's been playing WOW much longer than you have, and he'll be playing long after you quit because you're sick of dealing with him.

He can, however, single-handedly take out an opposing 3-man PvP squad.

The Incessant Role-Player

Sir Percy Fremblewick, Elf

This person somehow missed the memo that WOW is no longer about fun, it's about progress. For those of you who have read up on your Bartle, you know that World of Warcraft is pretty much a playground for Diamonds and Clubs. Exploring is irrelevant when everything is detailed in online strategy guides, or at least dictated to you by guildmates joining you for the raid. And socializing can happen in your guild, but the point of the game is to go kill things.

Yes, there are technically role-playing servers, but nobody role-plays on them. And your friend joined your server and your guild because that's where you were, even though you're trying to do serious raids and he's busy worrying about which talents would be more "in character" for him, rather than just using the specs that everyone knows are superior. If you ever hear a "Prithee" or "Forsooth" coming over your teamspeak, you know you've got one of these guys in your guild. Sometimes manifests as Mr. Emotes, and pays more attention to bowing to every character than he does to the rapidly approaching enemy.

Eternal N00b

"Guess you should have put more points in walking."

They've been playing for over a year, and somehow managed to get to level 60. But they still don't know the first thing about playing the game. Whether they're pulling a Leroy Jenkins and aggroing a whole bunch of mobs, or just accidentally walking off a cliff, the Eternal N00b just makes you shake your head in a mixture of contempt and pity. The pity will quickly disappear if the N00b is also the type who constantly asks for money and decent equipment. The reason they have no good equipment is because nobody in their right mind would ever invite them on a raid.

The Flirt

"You don't touch the other elves that way..."

When it comes to female gamers, many of them are just like male gamers, because they're all there to play the same game. Some of them, however, are online mainly to be female in a world populated mostly by male players. This is the specialty of the Flirt - making sexually charged comments to various players in your guild, and then having extended whisper chats with a few of them at once. She is useful for letting the eternal virgins in your guild feel like they have female friends, but not so useful for guild cohesion.

That should cover most of the people in your guild, but there may be others... feel free to comment below with any big archetypes in your guild that we've missed.

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