Recent Headlines for Guild Wars

State of the Game

By Keith Cross on May 08, 2008

ArenaNet has posted the latest State of the Game article for Guild Wars, which introduces Dark Ally, a guild billed as one of the best in the game to never have won it all in the automated tournaments.

Dark Alley was formed primarily from former members of Idiot Savants [iQ] and Team Quitter [QQ]. Although the guilds had been fierce rivals in the past, the declining player base of elite PvP players made it difficult for them to fill their respective teams, so they decided to combine into a new guild instead. [iQ] had several well known pick up guilds (PUGs) that had been collecting PvP players, and they decided to pull some of these people into the new guild as well. Of special note is the fact that each of the members of [dR] had previously been a guild leader, and thus were used to making decisions for themselves. This fit well with [dR]'s playstyle, as each individual must decide and act independently in a match.

The name "Dark Alley" has origins going back to the old Idiot Savants [iQ] guild. An old [iQ] member, Zrave, had a humorous habit each time the guild faced an opponent with a guild name written in a non-English language. Whenever this occurred, Zrave told the team he could translate the name. After a pause he would inform them that the name meant "Dark Alley" in the language. After about the fifth or sixth time, the rest of [iQ] caught on to his ploy. When asked about the meaning of their name, [dR] members will frequently say "It means ‘Dark Alley' in English. The reason they chose [dR] instead of [DA] for a guild tag has to do with their play style and build philosophy. At the time [dR] formed, hyper defensive builds were abundant, with some teams bringing one or even two copies of Defensive Anthem. [dR] didn't want their guild tag to be the abbreviation for a skill they disliked.