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.

1. Will gear have prerequisites and if so what form will they take? -Cerwyn
Yes! In Alganon, gear is one of the ways your character can progress, so there are many different requirements that a gear can have. Some gear has level requirements, players must reach a certain level to equip the item.

Some gear has study requirements. For example, there are many magical fire-themed items that require players to study Embermancy before they can use them. Players who choose to run the group content will find similar-level items without these requirements, but players who don't like to play in groups, but find themselves in need of the stats these items provide, can choose to study Embermancy and thus bypass the content they don't enjoy. There are also cosmetic elements that require studies. For example, the Hogsnout-head masks that our players were able to to test for us this Halloween will be available to players who may miss these holiday events, but choose to use their studies to get similar rewards.

Gear can also have prerequisites of faction, only friends of the Peacemantle can wear their tabard; or skill level, only an artisan blacksmith can wear the Apron of Argon; or even things as diverse as having completed a certain quest, being a certain class or race, having a certain stat, and a couple of "hidden" elements we can use to make different gear available to players who made different choices. We will use these requirements to provide alternate ways for players to get gear that, in other games, is only available through a single method.

2. How many "gathering" or "harvesting" type skills can one player have at any given time? -Cerek
In Alganon, there are 4 gathering skills (Herbalism, Mining, Salvaging, and Skinning) and 5 crafting skills (Blacksmithing, Leatherworking, Tailoring, Alchemy, and Novice Crafting). All players are granted Novice Crafting automatically, and can choose any two additional skills, for a total of 3 trade skills. These trade skills are highly interdependent, so players should expect all of the crafting skills to use materials from all of the gathering skills.

3. Am I going to have fun? -Kram59
I hope so. That is the reason we are making this game. Every member of our team is an avid MMO player and we are as excited about playing the game as the other players are!

4. Will there be plenty of instanced dungeons and end-game raiding ? -Fabled
Yes. This content will be unlocked by our players after the game goes live. A large part of the event we call "the Dawning" will be the unlocking of the first few instances for all of Alganon's players. The players who participate in the Dawning content will be able to tell future players about how they, personally, took part in an event to open the instances.

5. I see a docked ship at Westport. Will there be ship rides ? boats ? I know we have mounts and teleports, but is anything else planned for means of transportation ? -Cerek
At launch, just mounts and teleporters. We found that the Ourobi and their portals provided all of the "taxi" services we need, at a faster rate than waiting for a boat or preset flight. Fortunately, it is still fun to sing "I'm on a Boat" while the boat is docked, but we may add additional methods of transportation if other such opportunities arise.

6. Will there be some kind of mechanism that allow dungeons to scale depending on the party/raid size? -magtoch
We do not have plans to have dungeons scale automatically. Generally, these systems fall back on "more hp, hits harder, more of them" mechanics, which doesn't always translate to "more fun." We want to be certain our dungeons are the most fun for the number of players that enter them. Instead of an instance automatically adjusting for the number of players, we plan to respawn and adjust the AI of creatures in instances to create multiple versions of the same instance, each one balanced for different party sizes and/or level ranges. We are looking at creating instances balanced for groups of 3, 6, 12, 24, and 36 players.