Last month at E3, Quest Online announced that DC Comics is publishing an Alganon comic based on the game's upcoming Rise of the Ourobani expansion. The first issue of that comic will be featured at the DC Entertainment booth at San Diego Comic-Con through July 24. Here's the plot:

"Alganon – Fall of the Ourobani tells the story of Bana’serit, a young leader of the Ourobani. Under assault from rival factions, Bana’serit seeks out a mythical weapon in a desperate attempt to secure the safety of her people. This limited edition comic reveals the series of events that lead into the upcoming Alganon expansion pack, Rise of the Ourobani."

You can read the first few pages of the comic on the official Alganon site. The comic also includes a code for a free in-game item.

UPDATE: You can now download the entire comic for free on the Alganon site!

It's been more than a year since Alganon adopted a free-to-play model, and it looks like Quest Online has some big plans in store for the game. The team made a handful of important announcement at E3 today:

• The first Alganon expansion, Rise of the Ourobani, is scheduled to be released by the end of the year. It introduces a new playable race and player housing.
• DC Comics will be publishing an Alganon comic based on the Rise of the Ourobani expansion. It will be available later this year for free through various publications, including the iPad.
• The two US servers will be merged into a single server this month. A European server will be opened by the end of the month. Localized Asian servers should be available shortly.
• Two non-MMO games based on the Alganon lore are in development by third party partners. Both games will be simultaneously released on PC, Android and iOS platforms in the coming months and will allow the transfer of perks to Alganon.

For more details on all these announcements, check out Alganon's June newsletter.

Derek Smart took over as president of Quest Online with the sudden departure of co-founder and CEO David Allen. A post by Smart in the Alganon forums alluded to much more going on behind the scenes, so we tracked him down to get the details on the game that has had some of its own controversy since its ill-fated launch in December.  

After a weak "soft launch" in December, Alganon is headed for a huge makeover, according to new Quest Online President Derek Smart. Quest went through a major shakeup that brought Smart in and saw founder David Allen leave.

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.