I happened to be checking out some posts over on Blog Azeroth, and I came across a shared topic posted by Nube:

Since Cata started Guilds, matter more. In order to recieve Guild beneffits. everyone most work for them. In Wotlk, Leaving a Guild meant, changing Guild Tags, in Cata means TIME.

Does a Guild belong to those who lead it?. Should we check Guild Etiquette?

I ran this by resident lunatic, the green beast of the bizarre, Freaculano.  This is what he said: 

The Guild belongs to the guild leader.  Damn, that was easy.

(Editor’s Note:  Please clarify your statement, and don’t be a raging dick about it — H.)

Fine.  Whatever.

Back in the Wrath-old days, a guild was a group of people with the same tag under their name.  The only perks you got for being in a guild was various methods of access.  You had access to a shared guild bank, and access to a (supposed) group of like-minded players who shared the same goals as you did (raiding, pvp, sexy rp).  But that was back in the not-so-old days.

When Cataclysm unleashed itself on the World, there were now such things as guild perks, guild levels, and guild rep.  Players had to grind out rep to access certain items, or grind out xp to increase the guild’s level (which then unlocked more goodies.)  Either way, players had to put in time to improve guild status.  So does that mean the guild belongs more to the players than it does the GM?

Hells and No.

I’ve read some of the other posts bloggers have made regarding this topic, and the common thread is that the guild members are putting in the time to improve the guild, and therefore they have just as much ownership in the guild as the Guild Master.  I disagree.

Let’s look at the most important gimmick that affects the guild as a whole – Guild Perks.  In order to receive Guild Perks, you do not need everyone to work to obtain them.  All you need is one sucker person in a guild to run his dailies & run instances, all of which gains guild xp.  Eventually this person could unlock various Guild Perks.  One single person.  Doing it that way would take a damn long time for a guild to progress through its list of Guild Perks, and for a society that wants their goodies Right Fucking Now, they don’t have the patience to do that and would therefore consider it a failed concept.

It isn’t failed.  Whether you have one person grinding guild xp or a hundred, it still takes the samn amount of xp to level the guild.  The only difference is the speed in which it happens.

I’ve seen huge guilds like AIE who maxed out their guild xp every day and flew through the perks.  I’ve also seen smaller guilds who would have maybe one or two people on every night but still manage to amass perks.  It is a much slower progress, but it is still progress.  One of those people on every night just happens to be the Guild Leader – the guy who loved the guild enough to start it in the first place, and is working his ass off to progress it despite the fact that he’s doing it more or less solo.  But on a long enough time line, his guild will reach Level 25 – just like the big guilds.

So if one person can have the same results as a hundred, or two hundred, over a long enough time line, does that make his contribution any more special?  Impressive, yes.  Special?  No.

What about Guild Rewards?  Guild Rep?  Grinding Guild Rep only benefits the individual player, not the guild as a whole.  If someone wants to leave the guild but is pissy that he’s Exalted with his current guild, well too bad.  If I’m a GM and somone wants to leave my guild, I wouldn’t want them taking their rep with them anyhow.  They shouldn’t get to take my guild’s scorpion mount and ride around on it with another guild’s banner.   Yet most people who have gripes about the guild system tends to focus on losing the Guild Rep if they left their current guild.

Really?

The idea with the whole Guild Perk system was to encourage guilds to stay together, not to be able to take your Exalted guild rep to some other guild just because you didn’t feel like putting in the time with the new guild.  That’s just lazy, and doesn’t benefit either guild at all.

Mechanics aside, the Guild Leader has the idea for the type of guild he wants.  He finds officers who share that vision, and help him to cultivate the roster by weeding out those who are not like-minded.  With that common  ground (raiding, pvp, community) to build on, players tend to bond with each other more than they would if they assembled just to be part of a Level 25 guild.

So yes, as far as guild ownership goes, the ship belongs to the captain:  the Guild Leader.