After only a few months of availability to consumers, the developers at Alganon have opted to drop the subscription fee to their game. Although they're not moving to a straight free-to-play model, they've decided to go the route that we've seen with Guild Wars in the past and allow gamers to play their game for free once they've made their initial purchase.

For the entire story, you can either continue reading or head on over to the Alganon official site to check out their post and discussion.

Quest Online has published four new Alganon screenshots on the game's official site, and three of them give us a glimpse into some upcoming dungeons. The fourth image, which can be seen above, shows "a Talrok riding a very special Jax (and seeming a bit out of place in the lush green forest)."

You can view all four screenshots in our Alganon gallery.

Patch 1.1.7.2134 (that has a nice ring to it) is now live in Alganon. The update squashes a number of bugs, addresses some balance issues and adds some enhancements to the game. For example, "a Loot Roll method has been added to settle those disputes on who gets the uncommon and rare items in a group."

in addition, soldiers and rangers have had their ability specializations reset due to changes to the classes. You can read the full patch notes after the jump.

Quest Online Co-Founder and President David Allen posted an Alganon update last night that says the team's "number one priority right now is getting rid of the disconnection issues," followed by fixing bugs related to broken quests and missing NPCs.

"Our goal is to have Alganon really solid by the end of this month for the upcoming release of The Dawning and a few yet unannounced enhancements," Allen said. The Dawning is Alganon's first real expansion, which is scheduled to launch in the first quarter of 2010. You can read Allen's full statement below.

Quest Online Co-Founder and President David Allen has published his final Alganon letter of the year, and it looks ahead to what the team has in store for the game in 2010. Alganon's first real expansion is scheduled to launch in the first quarter of 2010, and the team also plans to refine the game's introduction to make the game more appealing to new players.

In addition, an add-on system should be going live in January that will let players create their own interfaces and visual adjustment. "We are also planning to launch a yet unannounced feature in January related to the social aspect of MyAlganon," Allen said.

You can read Allen's full letter after the jump.

As we reported, Quest Online recently started an Alganon Trial Server program that lets you try out the game for free for 30 days per character. This means that there's really nothing holding you back from trying out the game if it piques your interest. Regardless, the team has taken the time to answer some ... interesting ... questions from fans in its 19th Developer Roundtable.

"Am I going to have fun?" one user asked. As you may expect, the team hopes its players enjoy Alganon. Other answers confirm that gear does have prerequisites, players can learn three trade skills, and it's fun to sing "I'm on a Boat" when the ship is docked at Westport.

You can read the full Q&A after the jump.

Quest Online has launch a new Alganon Trial Server System that lets players try out the game for free to see if they're interested in purchasing the fantasy MMO. Players who would like to access the trial server must create a MyAlganon account.

So how long does the trial last? According to the FAQ, "individual trial characters more than 30 days old will periodically be deleted," so it looks like you have a month to try out Alganon with each character. There is no limit on the level you can reach on a trial server. You can read the full FAQ after the jump.

"We will be announcing further details about the possibility of a character transfer from a trial server to a subscription server in the future," Community Manager Tork said on the official forums. You can discuss the trial on the Alganon Trial General Discussion forum.

Quest Online has announced that Alganon is now available for digital download on Impulse. The game is currently on sale for $19.95 on Impulse and the official Alganon site, so now is the perfect time to pick up the newly launched MMO.

The full Impulse announcement can be found after the jump. For more information on Alganon, check out our launch day interview with Community Manager Jim "Tork" Younkin.

Every year, MMO gamers have one month that seems to be dedicated to the launch of stand-alone games and follow-up expansions. December seems to be that magical month this year, and we’re seeing a batch of expansions from games like EverQuest and Lord of the Rings Online, but we also are heralding the release of the independently developed MMO, Alganon.

To celebrate the launch of Alganon, the ZAM staff sat down with Jim “Tork” Younkin, Community Manager and Evangelist for the title, and we discussed some of their pre-launch promotions and what kind of features made it into the release of their MMO.

After being pushed back from Oct. 31, today marks the official launch of Alganon. David Allen, the president and co-founder of Quest Online, has written a letter to celebrate the occasion and thank his team and the players for their support.

"The next few weeks are going to be the toughest as we begin to troubleshoot specific issues and refine the game and server systems," Allen said, noting that the team will work directly with players to resolve all issues. He also mentions that Quest Online already has years of content planned, including "Deities, Crusades, Consignment, Domain Control, PvP, and a ton of other systems."

You can read Allen's full letter after the jump. Will you be picking up Alganon?