All is not lost

MilMo is not gone forever. Dohi Entertainment is happy to announce that MilMo will be available soon again.

As you may have heard, Dohi Entertainment has acquired all rights to the game and we are working on bringing it back online as soon as possible. Re-booting a game of this caliber, with servers, webpages and databases can be a fair bit of work.
We at Dohi Entertainment are happy to find that in the case of MilMo the transition of acquiring it and bringing it back is better than expected. And we also have the opportunity to work with some of the previous developers of the game in order to get it online faster.

We understand that from a player perspective you are concerned about your in-game character and items. We just want too tell you that your character is intact and we will bring the game back to a state in which it was a few days before the shutdown. No items bought will be lost and your in-game belongings will be there waiting for you.

We'll keep you updated as we move along with the transition. MilMo would be nothing without all it's fans and it is for you that we bring this awesome game back.

Hope to see you soon in MilMo.

Christofer Stegmayr
Lead Developer, Dohi Entertainment

Junebud Closing Down

Hi MilMonauts,

We have some very sad news to tell you. This week the company behind MilMo (Junebud), decided it was time to close down, due to economic problems. The whole Junebud Crew is very sad about this, and we apologize for the inconvenience.

We still don't know what will happen to MilMo. All payment options in MilMo have been disabled until we know more.

From the bottom of our heart; thank you all MilMonauts! You have proven to be the best community ever, and we truly hope MilMo will find a way to stay online, may it be with Junebud or not.

For more news, keep an eye on the official forum or Junebud's homepage.

Love,
The Junebud Crew

April 2012 Player of The Month: Junior Dark

Junebud's community manager Sara (ColdFace) interviewing Junior Dark

April's Player of the month is the MilMo veteran & GM Junior Dark! He's been active for quite some time on the BR servers and also runs a popular YouTube channel where he posts videos of computer games. Junebud's community manager Sara gives you the whole interview! If you prefer to read it in Brazilian-Portuguese, head over to our BR developer blog!

Hi Junior dark, Congratulations on becoming a player of the month! How do you feel?

Hello Sara and all MilMonauts, I'm very glad they want to know a little about this kid ;) I'm kinda timid :P, is an honor, thanks to everyone who voted for me xD.

Photo from the "Meet the Developers" event!

How long have you played Milmo? How did you find the game?

I have been playing since December 2010. I played a social game on Orkut, then ads of MilMo began to be displayed above the game, and the announcement of the first 3D game on Orkut. I had never played a 3D game on Orkut, so I signed up and after one week I received my access key and then started to play :).

Where do you live in real life, and what is it like? How are you in real life?

I live in Curitiba, that's he capital of Paraná, located in southern Brazil.

This is known as the ecological capital, even if it is an urban center, you will find hundreds of green parks for relaxing in the weekend, I really love it. In real life I am well and happy with my work and faculty.

A beautiful park in Junior Dark's home town Curitiba!

When you play, what would you like to do? Do you have any favorite islands?

When I'm in the game I like doing quests (if any) because I really like the story of the game and when there's no more quests to do I like staying on the islands in search of coins or just watching other players.

My favorite islands are Nikonos Island, Rose Island and the whole Air Word Saga, haha, I like these because they are islands that bring harmony to me.

On Nikonos Island!

Who do you hang out with in MilMo, or you play mostly by yourself?

I play most of the time alone, but when I meet friends, I play with Kowalski and Vanny.

In the beginning I had a very nice friend named Jarilene.

Junior, Vanny and Kowalski playing together!

Junior and Jarilene having a good time!

 Tell me about your YouTube channel!

I created it to post videos of the gameplay in Milmo. My project was to make videos about how to get the Exploration Tokens, events and play music, but then I run out of time to play :( But I soon plan to return to this project, so stay tuned ;)

Do you have any MMM? MilMo Memories that it is! Something special that you remember that you want to share with us?

I have many memories of MilMo! Like when I won the medal "Lord of War" and when I met my friends on the EN server! The most striking to me and surely for many was the return of MilMo BR, thank Junebud <3.

There were a lot of sad faces last year when Mentez removed MilMo BR

Awww, we are so happy we could bring back the game for you! You're a Game Master (GM) in MilMo. What is it like for you? Tell us! (Read more about how to become a GM here).

It is an honor and a great responsibility! To help players and make sure they are safe online! I like to see Milmo as a place of fun, friendship, respect and love of the neighbor.

As a GM you have to deal with different situations and different people with many different behaviors. The hardest part is having to report a player for violating the rules of the game, but is a necessary part of being a GM.

Being a GM is a job that will occupy most of the GM's playing time, if you love to do this you will be handled well. All GMs are giving their best to keep MilMo a safe and fun game to play, if we all unite we will have a great game.

Thank you for the interview Junior Dark! It's been a pleasure!

Thank you Junebud, see you around!

In order to read other posts featuring "Player of The Month" check this out:

April 2012: Junior Dark

March 2012: Alianore

 February 2012: WILLDOUG
 January 2012: Vanny
 December 2011: Lenon
 November 2011: Dragisa
 October 2011: Sobe

Vote for May's player here!

- The Junebud Crew

March 2012 Player of The Month: Alianore

Hi MilMonauts,

Sara interviewing player of the month: Alianore!

A new month has passed, this means a new Player of The Month! This time it's Alianore from the EN servers. She is a well known GM who helps new players and runs the popular MilMo blog "All About MilMo", one of the few English blogs about MilMo out there. On her spare time she is teaches history on a collage in the US.

Hi Alianore, congratulations on becoming player of the month! How does it feel?

It is really awesome!  I am so very grateful for the player votes and nominations, and I think there are so many of us who are so worthy of the recognition!



How long have you been playing MilMo? How did you find the game?

I have been playing since January of 2011.  I found the game through Facebook advertisement while I was busy playing a social game.  It must have been pretty remarkable, because I think I almost remember the wording of the advertisement.



Wow! Then we did something right! Where do you live in real life, and what's it like? How are you in real life?

I live in the Dallas/Fort Worth Metroplex, which is in Texas (United States).  The area where I live is very populous, the metroplex includes several cities with many suburban communities, although I do not know the exact number I know have to be over 20 towns and cities.  However, I am not a native to this state, I am originally from Oregon which is on the west coast of the U.S.  So living in Texas is sort of adventure, what is most notable about the area is the extreme weather…we had several tornadoes here, with one at my workplace and one in my home community!  It was terrifying and the damage was incredible. Luckily, I had no damage at my house.

A really dangerous tornado, picture by Alianore

In real life, hmmmm…I am very much like I am in the game: very chatty and sort of lecture-y!  I am a history professor in real life (yes, with a doctorate even!) and so I like to talk a lot and I really love to help others by teaching or showing them how to do things.  I have a pretty wicked sense of humor and sometimes that comes across in the game, but I try to be careful with it because we have an international player-base and I do not want something that is meant to be funny come across the wrong way!  I have a lot of hobbies and interests, so if I am not playing MilMo in my free time, I am doing any number of things.



Those tornadoes sure look scary. When playing, what do you like to do the most? Any favorite islands?

This is a really hard question!  I like to do it all: quests, coin runs, work on various medals.  I am a very casual player though, I like to take my time with things so I always have something to do when I can play.  I also like being able to help out on the game Wiki, so going slow and easy allows me to add Wiki pages and take pictures to update it.

Collecting Coins on Swap Island (Alianore's favorite island)

OH! My favorite island is Swamp Island, hands down!  I have always loved it and even wrote a blog article about it.  I love running around the place and killing those monsters there.  There is just something about the design of the island, how you move around there, and the things you can do there that has always just made it really fun for me!  By the way, I LOVE the addition of the mining rock outcroppings on the island…even more to do now!



Thank you! Who do you hang out with in MilMo, or do you play mostly by yourself?

Well, when the time zones are right, I usually hang out with Sobe and Vanny.  There are just about the best people and players around!  We call ourselves the Panda-Eyed Girls Club.  But I also love to spend time with my daughter Starr_1204, and friends: Kazey, Gielo, im ur king, Painnaski, Lady Zu, Kamichan, Edu, and many others!  There are just too many to name, so if I forgot to mention you know I love you all.  I will say, however, that when I am alone I do get a lot more accomplished in game!

Alianore and her daughter Starr playing MilMo together

Tell me about your MilMo blog, when did you start writing it? How do you come up with stories to write about?

I decided to start my blog All About MilMo in February 2012 for several reasons: outside of the Developer Blog, there were not any English-language MilMo blogs around; I wanted to start longer, detailed discussions with players regarding all sorts of game-related ideas that might be more in-depth than is really appropriate for the game forum; and, because I like to write quite a lot and wanted the freedom to discuss the game in articles as long or as short as I wanted.  

Time to come up with new ideas for her MilMo blog, the Aunty Alianore hat helps a lot!

Ideas for articles come from so many sources, sometimes I will observe player interactions and/or quarrels and feel the need to talk about it in a constructive, non-critical manner.  This is when I sit down in my comfy chair in my MilMo house and put on my Aunty Alianore hat!  Other ideas come from following the tweets of the developers when they are brainstorming and jump right on in those discussions.  Mostly though, my ideas come from interacting with my player friends and just playing the game…I might be working on my beast medals in Cozyville and thinking “I wish there were more of these guys here to kill,” and that leads to another thought and then another, and before you know it, I have an article being written in my head.



Do you have any MMM? MilMo Memories that is! Something special you remember that you want to share with us?

I have so many wonderful memories, that is a tall order!  MilMo memories are made time every time I play, but off the top of my head would be the first time I actually got to meet Gielo in game (January of this year) which was really cool for me because I have always admired him as a player and now that we have gotten together to chat more, I really admire him as a person.  Another great memory is when I came back to play after a brief hiatus last year and met back up with Sobe, we had the best conversation and she was just there to pick up our friendship as if there was not any pause.  Also, getting to meet Vanny for the first time was so wonderful, sitting in her house and getting to know each other.  Oh no, I think I could go on and on!

Meeting Gielo in-game is a fond memory for Alianore

You are a GM on MilMo EN. Tell us about it, what's it like?

Wow, being a GM is still a little mind-blowing for me…I am so proud of the honor and the responsibility that was given to me.  Most of what being a GM is about is being there to help other players, whether it is answering questions, helping a player accomplish a task or quest, or mediating a player dispute with another player.  Interacting with players in a different way than when you are just a player is the very best thing about being a GM.  The hardest part about the job is having to report a player for violating one of the game rules, but it is a necessary part of what GMs do and our biggest responsibility.  Whereas players are leery or angry with GMs for actions that we have to take, it is part of our obligations to act as needed for the situation because our core responsibility is ensuring the game is a good, fun, and safe playing environment.  Many players (like myself) want to be GMs, but the first lesson I have learned is that you have to put the rules of the game ahead of all other things, including your playing friends, because that is our task…the GM Badge is a cool thing to carry, but you have to be willing to do the best thing in any given situation.  Being a GM is a very busy job, but I do love it because it is very rewarding!

Thank you Alianore, it has been a pleasure! Have an awesome day!


Vote for April's player of the month over at our forum, just click here.

Yours,

Community managers Sara & Ivan



In order to read other posts featuring "Player of The Month" check this out:

March 2012: Alianore

 February 2012: WILLDOUG
 January 2012: Vanny
 December 2011: Lenon
 November 2011: Dragisa
 October 2011: Sobe

The History of MilMo: 2009

Hello MilMonauts,

It's finally time for the next part of the "History of MilMo" blog post series! You can read about 2008 here, and the Brazilian Portuguese version of our text here. This time we will take a look what happened back in 2009. This was the year Junebud finally released the closed beta version of the game, just before Christmas.

A collection of MilMo avatars from 2008 to the beginning of 2012

2009: The Closed Beta Goes Live

At this point MilMo was still a mix between realistic looking materials and cartoony avatars. The water found in the pool at Seastar Resort (or Summer Island as it was called in 2009) was way more realistic than today. The same can be said about the ocean.

They are a bit rough, but the avatars are staring to look more and more like the modern MilMo avatars.

Picture of early Seastar Resort from inside the Unity editor.

Seastar Island was a mix between the modern Nikonos Island and what came to be the chat level Seastar Resort in 2010. There are also some details from Lightmill Island, like the mill.  As you can see the buildings were all white, but the structure of the buildings and the flower shaped umbrellas still remain today. The trampolines were removed later on, and the buildings made orange.

Girl avatar at the old Seastar Resort before it became a chat level.

The boy is holding an early version of the bat. Can you see the big rhubarbs in the background?

At Summer Island. The game is now less than half a year from the closed beta release. These trees never made it to the final version of the closed beta.

A girl avatar smiling by the pool.

The two main goals of 2009 were to release a playable beta version of the game on milmogame.com, and make sure enough talented people joined the Junebud Crew. We wanted to create a balanced mix between experienced game developers and new, young talent. If your crew only exists of veterans you will not get new, fresh ideas and find out what's hot and whats not. On the other side, if you have a majority of juniors there's a chance a lot of confusion will arise since there's not clear vision or experience of how to handle previous challenges. It's one thing to make games for fun or at school, but another ting to make them for living. 

Early concepts for different MilMo islands. Some of them made it to the game, some did not (yet?).

Above you can see some early concepts of Summer Tide Saga islands. At this time Summer Tide Saga was just called the "Summer World". At least six of these islands can be found in-game today: Swamp Island, Rose Island (the old one), Sage Oak, Lightmill and Alien Ruins. The first level concept art ever created actually shows Visitor Island, but the island itself was released almost 1,5 years later. When we released the MilMo beta in late 2009 it only featured one island, the Summer Island.

Early version of Kraken Island. The water is still pretty realistic, but the characteristic MilMo clouds are there!

The game starts to look more and more like the MilMo known today. Do you recognize Jay from the MilMo Comics?

Now it's only about 1 month left for the game until we let players in. Note the lack of interface, only an early version of the shop button is visible.

Swamp Island and Rose Island. One month left to the closed beta launch.

At this point MilMo as we know it is starting appear. The water is not as realistic anymore, the chunky trees are being replaced by more MilMo-ish ones, the avatars are starting to look smooth and the art direction is more consistent. We wanted to create a unique look for MilMo. It should be possible to identify the game with one single screen shot taken anywhere, on any level.

The MilMo forum goes live in late 2009. The main function of the forum back then was to help players report bugs (which they were really good at!).

The very first splash screen ever to be used at the at milmogame.com

In December 2009 we finally launched the first version of the game. At this point we had no idea the game would be translated into Brazilian Portuguese. There was only one MilMo available, and you had to sign up and get a beta key in order to play. There was no world map, no friend list, there were coins instead of gems, a very basic medal track and only 1 island. It was time for the first players to start exploring what we had built for the past 1,5 years. The big challenge of 2010 would be to expand this tiny island world start finding and fixing all the bugs.

Next time I will guide you trough 2010. Stay tuned!

Yours,

Community Managers Sara & Ivan

Previously in this series:

1. The History of MilMo: 2008

February 2012 Player of The Month: WillDoug

Hello MilMonauts,

Sara interviewing Willdoug

Let me present the Player Of The Month: February: WillDoug! He is a Game Master on MilMo BR and a devoted MilMo player. If you want to read this interview in Brazilian Portuguese, make sure to check out our Brazilian developer blog here.

Hello Will, congratulations on becoming player of the month! How does it feel?
Hello Sara and all the players. I'm very happy because of several cool players , I was chosen to talk a little about me. I want to thank everyone for the honor they gave me.I think it's a great pleasure to be the player of the month, because people want to know about you a little better.

What is the story behind your avatar name?
The name of my avatar I chose from the reduction of my real name. When I started playing was hard to think of the name of my avatar, because at that time could not change names, so I tried to reduce my name, and with time I liked It and now I do not see myself without it in the game. 

Awesome trio of friends in Ancient Forest

Where do you live in real life, and what's it like? How are you in real life?
I live in Sobral, a city of Ceará State (Northeast of Brazil). It is a beautiful City and It is not very big, but I like to live here, because sometimes it is quiet, but can also be very busy because of the universities and factories (It is so hot and it doesn't have a beach). In my real life I am well and happy, I think when I won a lot of things I wanted, but still more to come.

The town of Sobra (Brazil) where Will lives in real life!

When playing, what do you like to do the most? Any favorite islands?
When I'm in the game I like to help players who always call me or find me on the islands, I think I'm a great observer, I like to observe the behavior of people, and comes to understand how the relations of friendship and companionship in the game. My favorite islands are all the Mice & Maniax, because they have a mystery, and I love mysteries.

Who do you hang out with in MilMo?  
I have two best friends who accompanied me from the beginning of the game and helped me at all times, they are Claire and his son TomCat. I have also met Sr.Edu, Sobe, Margel (I met him when we became GMs), and many other friends that I can not cite because the list is too large!

Hanging out with friends on Nikonos Island

What do you do when you are not online in MilMo? 
When I'm not online MilMo, I'm at university or at my part-job. Also I like reading comic books and newspapers, listen to music and also have fun with friends.

Do you have any MMM? MilMo Memories that is! Something special you remember that you want to share with us?
I have many memories of MilMo. When I got my epics weapons ,and when I met my friends. But I think what else has been marked a return of  MilMo BR was a great happiness for me and many players, I want to thank again to the Junebud. I can not forget the time I played MilMo EN, because I have many friends there too.

Will's first epic weapon!

You are one of the first GMs in MilMo BR! Tell us what you do as a GM, and what's it like? 
For me it is an honor to be GM MilMo, because I can help players, and make them feel safe and have fun, and also help Junebud keep an eye on the game, since you help us and make MilMo BR better. Being a GM is to have a great responsibility, because you have to make the players understand the rules while taking decisions on those who break them (The GMs are not always there to punish someone, but to make them understand the rules) and understand that you also have rules you must follow. 

With friends in Air World

Thanks for the interview Will, we hope to see you in-game!

Yours,

The community team at Junebud Ivan & Sara

Invite Your Friends!

Hello MilMonauts,

We finally launched the new, improved Invite-Your-Friends-System last week on the 7th of March, along with the 47th Update. The update itself featured new offhand weapons, the Fallen Heroes event, a 50% sale on Sun Parade items and new loot for Lock Boxes. The invite system is now live on Orkut and Facebook (both BR and EN). The Junebud Crew are still working hard to implement this for milmogame.com. For now it's only possible to invite your friends by e-mail on milmogame.com, and unfortunately that old system does not give you access to the new Sanctuary level or to the invite reward items. Here's a quick explanation of the improved invite system:

1. The invite system shows up when you log on to MilMo.

When you log on to MilMo the invite track appears. Click "Invite Friends" and follow the instructions on Facebook/Orkut. You can easily see how many friends you invited, and how many actually accepted the invitation. There's different rewards for sent invitations and accepted invitations. If you invite 300 persons you get a free Heliticket, and if you get 300 players to start playing the game you receive the Safir bow. But don't worry, there's plenty of cool rewards along the way!

The new chat room "The Sanctuary"

Attached to the invite system we have the new chat room called "The Sanctuary". Some of you might remember the tutorial level "The Brink" from when you started playing MilMo. It seems like the new chat level is located somewhere in this space, beyond space and time, where the Queen of MilMo is living.

Get 50 players to play the game and you get the mighty Safir Sword!

 The new Safir suit comes in 9 parts. The first one are the shoes, then the pants, the shield, the suit, the helmet, the sword and the bow. If you get 20 players to start playing the game you get to meet the Queen inside the Sanctuary and you get a golden throne for your home at 150 new players. But what's most remarkable is that you actually get your avatar name listen in-game in MilMo when you get the golden throne!

Get your avatar name written on a crystal in-game for everyone to see!

 The avatar name will be displayed on the crystal outside the Sanctuary for all other MilMonauts to see. This is a totally new feature and one of it's kind in MilMo!

Inside "The Sanctuary"

Finish the quest given by the Crystal to get the gloves

The Safir bow, extremely powerful and even deals magic damage!

That's it for now. Remember to check out our new MilMo BR Facebook page and the new BR YouTube channel! We are making small sneak peaks of upcoming features and launching them on YouTube, so be sure not to miss anything!

- Sara &Ivan

P.S If you prefere to read this in BR-PT, check out or Brazilian developer blog!

Avatars From Meet the Devlopers On MilMo BR!

Hello MilMonauts,

Last week we had a pretty awesome Meet the Developers Event on MilMo BR (1st of March 2012). If you prefer to read this post in BR-PT please visit our Brazilian developer blog. Plenty of players grabbed their best outfits and traveled to Seastar Resort in order to have fun and celebrate the Sun Parade! We have chosen some of the coolest outfits we could spot, and given them a free Lock Box key! Here are the winning costumes:

Kadinos and TATAESTRELA

Slash, dow², Chico Mak, Ozwell and Vanny

ReGiggi, Liebe, Gutho and Slash again

ead, Mestre Ninja, carlão and DUW

 cococococo, Banabab, Kadinos and kid

íthala, BiLLY KiD, HATCHET and caorti

MEGALuAzinHo, Dese, Selit, marilda and max tiler

Tipi, Piitchula, allina and Sosiv

Luzza, MILEID, Yukki and Alyell

Jeffers0n, Fláfesi, Vaguitzz, Fova and Mony Mimi

If you find you avatar's name misspelled please let us know as soon as possible so we can give the Lock Box key. You can contact us by posting a comment in this blog. Next post it's time to show the second batch of screen shots from the event!

Yours,

Ivan & Sara