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

January 2012 Player of The Month: Vanny

Vanny (with the beautiful wings) and Sara!

A new month has passed, and a new player has been voted "the player of the month" on the EN forum! The winner this time is someone you probably already know about: Vanny! She plays on MilMo BR and sometimes visits the MilMo EN. She is a Game Master and long time MilMo player! If you rather read this in Brazilian-Portuguese, click here.

Vanny (with the bat wings), me (with the goggles) at Seastar

Hello Vanny, congratulations on becoming player of the month! How does it feel? 

 Thank you Sara. It's a pleasure to me be the player of the month. I feel very honored to be chosen because I know that we have very awesome players that could be interviewed before me. New players are coming and showing great attitude for help the players in MilMo, then, I only could think in some good names to be here. But i need also to say thank you to some players, those that are very curious about the shy-girl Vanny :)

When did you start playing MilMo? Why did you stay?

I did start play around February, 2011. At first I was very sad because my game always crashed on Rose island and after some attempts, I just stop to play. But when April comes, I tried again to play and my game was working fine :) Since this moment i could discover really what is play MilMo. Exactly when I discover that, I didn't stop to play. Every times and every days looking forward to discover more and get more things in-game. And don't forgetting about some friends, they are also my reason to play " my " amazing MilMo.

At the Eternal Monument with friends!

I've noticed you are online on quite strange times, don't you ever sleep?

Hahaha! I knew you and some players are  curious about it :) Well, I have my own business and I stay sometimes in my office or home. So, where I am, I want to enjoy this time to play and help also on forum and community. But I don't have such time, then i need to stay connected on my PC, laptop or smartphone ( to help on BR forum or Orkut community ). And when we have a own business, we don't have so much time to sleep, and I use this time to play, when I am " free ".

The Hidden Tor

When playing, what do you like to do the most? Any favorite islands?

Definitely I am a person who like to talk a lot. With this, I just like to talk with friends, meet new people ( despite be shy ) and I like so much to help players when they need. If they need to solve some issues ( that I can handle ) and need help in general, like quests or tokens. My favorite island is Hidden Tor :) I love this place.

Who do you hang out with in MilMo?

I have 5 musketeers :P Persons that I'm really learning to love everyday of my real or in-game life. I'm used to hang out with Sobe, Sr.Edu, Sosiv, Kid and my new friend Alianore :) They are here <3, close to my heart and I'm grateful to have all of them on my side.

Where do you live in real life? What's it like there? Do you have any hidden talents?

Vanny is quite a painter!

I live in Rio de Janeiro - Brazil. The most beautiful city of the world ( at least for me ). My city is known as the " wonderful city " because she has beautiful natural places like beaches and mountains. We have really a lot of beaches wherever you go. We have a such biggest Carnival also, that is happening these days here :) Talents? Hmmmm, let me think :) Maybe it's hard to say " talent ", but i have some things that I want to do here: I like to paint some pictures with oil tint. They aren't so beautiful, but are my time to relax and let me be inspired by the things around me. This one I made based on MilMo " The way from to cozyville to Ancient forest ". ( don't laugh guys ).

What do you do when you are not online in MilMo?

A sunny beach in Brazil!

Sincerely, these last times I'm not having so much time to have fun without MilMo. But i like to enjoy my friends, family, dogs and enjoy my beach :) Yeah, I like so much to have time to stay on beach and relax, principally now that is summer here in Brazil. I just love it! 

WOW what a beach! In Sweden it's cold and snowy at the moment. Do you have any MMM? MilMo Memories that is! Something special you remember that you want to share with us?

Yes, and I cannot forget about it. It was when we know that " MilMo BR will be closed down " and I came to MilMo EN to play. I was so sad when i was trying to invite the BR players to play the English version. Not because to play the EN version, but about the news of the end of MilMo BR. However, I could see persons that already know me, and i didn't know, because they did see me there on EN forum :) At this point, I could see me on a familiar place, with new friends and trustworthy persons. The sun always will shine on the morning, always :)

Sobe and Vanny in Vanny's Home

You are one of the first GMs in MilMo BR! Tell us what you do as a GM, and what's it like?

Yes, and it's a pleasure for me being a GM for MilMo. Sometimes I need to share my time to play in both servers. But i handle this with a such happiness and grateful that I have no words to say how I'm feeling to have a opportunity to help the players as possible. Like i said above, I am a shy person but I have a strong personality. For me rules are rules and fun is fun. As GM, I'm trying to check if the game rules of the terms of use are being followed. I need to handle with different situations and different persons that handle with you with different behavior also. I like also to check if we have some little " bugs " in-game and send these things to Junebud :) Yeah, seems to be a lot of things, but when you do what you love, the things are like a fresh wind on your face :)

Thank you for the interview Vanny, it's always a pleasure to talk with you!

If you want to nominate of vote for the next "player of the month" click here.

Yours,

EN Community Manager Sara and BR Community Manager Ivan

On the Road (Again)

Hello Players,

If you follow Sara and myself on Twitter you already know that we went to Hamburg, Germany, for the Casual Connect conference two weeks ago. Sara's usually on the away team because she's well traveled, cheerful, good around people and effective at taking notes. In case I never mentioned it I know this because I used to be her teacher back at University. But that was way back when, before Junebud and in another life.

Anyway. Whenever we go off to a games meet we bring a camera along. First stop once we get back is usually a blog post. These past two weeks have been busy at the office (sorry, can't say more than that) but I finally found an opening with enough time to write something cohesive.

Train through Denmark. Sara is a compulsive reader and a news hound.

We took the train from Sweden. Last year we flew down, but this time we figured we'd try something different. I'm usually cautious about trains. I spent 5 hours every day on trains commuting to my previous job. But when push comes to shove it's very relaxing to go by train, and way easier to get work done. I broke out my laptop and worked on a company presentation for new employees. Junebud has been growing lately and it's a challenge to keep everybody up to speed.

On the ferry from Denmark to Germany. I always hit the sun deck when I'm on a ferry.

Once we'd made it through Denmark they loaded the whole train set onto the ferry for Puttgarden. Being on these ferries is nostalgic to me. When I was a kid in the south of Sweden there was no bridge between Sweden and Denmark and we rode the ferry a lot. Sara is from the Åland islands, between Finland and Sweden, so she's seen her fair share of ferries, too.

Finally in Hamburg!

We made it to Hamburg in the late afternoon and because this was our second time (we went to Casual Connect 2011) we decided to use our vast experience and walk to the hotel. This was a little less enjoyable once we found that Germany was just as cold as Sweden! Last year it was warm and spring-like and pretty much a vacation away from the blizzard at home.

View from the 26th floor. That's the highest up I've ever had a room.

Luckily we had booked rooms at a hotel right next to the conference center. Last year we had a 40 minute walk to the convention every morning. It turned out the rooms were at the top of one of the tallest buildings in Hamburg.

Conventions are a lot of work. Besides all the traveling you end up on a tight schedule. There are lectures all day long and social events every evening where there's important networking to be had. Casual Connect is really the best opportunity for Junebud because the other companies here make online games and Free games, too. Now that I think about it, I've never even worked on a single player game. I like people when I play.

After check-in and dinner it was time to get to work.

Meet & greet at Park Café with other game industry peeps.

Former Crew member Irene was in Hamburg, and so was Magnus and Malte from Triolith.

You can follow all these guys on Twitter

Convention time. The Hamburg Convention Center is bright and airy.

Step one: find the lecture halls and plan out what lectures to attend.

King.com CEO and founder explaining his views on entrepreneurship.

It was cool to see lectures from classical board game designers.

I started my own career making miniatures war games.

There were a lot of interesting lectures going on. Luckily there were only two lecture halls this year, cut down from three the year before. That meant that between the two of us we could cover all the ground when we needed to. We usually send a two-man team for information gathering conventions. On conventions where Junebud has a booth and we present our work we bring a least three people. That way there's always someone to man the booth while people eat, network or need breaks.

Lunch. Sausage. Germany.

Team Junebud doing the learning thing.

One evening we found this awesome sushi restaurant based around a conveyor belt.

Conveyor sushi – soon in a city near you.

A trend I've noticed lately is that companies like to throw networking parties in adult environments. When I went to industry parties at the turn of the millennium it was usually in something like an old railway station or a night club. These last years companies enjoy using edgier locations like this convention's Gree party in the infamous Reeperbahn district of Hamburg, or the party Big Point party at GDCO 2011 in Austin at the Playboy Mansion. It's less interesting than it sounds. The club owners have always packed away the more daring entertainment you're left with a bunch of game developers walking around with glasses in their hands. Or sitting in the corners with their smart phones, messaging all their friends and followers. Sometimes it's hard to meet new people like this as many become nervous in these environments.

That evening's social event was at Club Halo, in the shadier

part of town.

These chairs were totally metal. Go, German metal music!

(Wait, don't we have these chairs in MilMo... now I'm confused.)

One of my long time heroes, Dr. Richard Bartle, on stage.

Dr. Bartles' been a huge influence in my

theoretical understanding of MMORPGS. Read his work.

All in all it was a nice experience this year. We got to spend a lot of time with Magnus and Malte from Swedish Triolith Entertainment. They make mobile games and are hard working people. Magnus is also a former game design student of mine, but I don't take any credit. I love it when people act on their dreams and start their own companies.

We also got to meet our former co-worker Irene a lot, which was great fun. She's still sharp as a tack and cheerful at every turn and we had a great time talking about the good old days.

On the last day Irene and Sara were busy taking notes. What's the Triolith gang up to? 

After every lecture you get a chance to chat with the speaker.

Sara's swapping business cards with the Google guy.

Ferry back to Denmark. The quest for Tweet worthy pictures continues.

Almost home. Home is good.

Towards the end of the trip we were both well tired. Four days of around the clock activity is a huge creativity boost but it leaves you physically drained. Sara had a cold that kept growing worse with every day. This is becoming a small tradition in it's own right because the same thing happened last year. The next step from here is to compile the notes and run a presentation for the rest of the Junebud Crew. But that's a story for another day.

Take care,

Ola

The History of MilMo: 2008

Hello MilMonauts,

Not so long ago we celebrated the happy fact that MilMo BR had been online for one year! Now it's time for a blog series about the history of MilMo, both BR and EN. We're going to look back and see what's happened since the early start in 2008 when MilMo took it's first baby steps towards the beautiful, fun, social MMO it has become today. We have come a long way since the very first beta versions of the game!

Pre-Beta: 2008

First things first. Junebud was formed back in the summer of 2008 when some of the veterans from the traditional PC game industry decided they had grown tired of making war games. The web 3D games were an emerging market and the Unity game engine had just arrived to the scene. The free to play busies model seemed to be working nicely on the Asian market. Junebud wanted to create something truly unique and fresh, so we combined the power of streaming with our very own art direction and the free to play model. This mix was named Million Morning, and eventually got the name "MilMo".

Basic movement tests of the avatars. Do you recognize Lightmill Island?

A lot ideas for current islands were born back then. Some of you might recognize Lightmill Island from these old pictures. The MilMo art direction is a bit rough, but it's there. The hardest part was to make all the basic things work, like the laws of physics, movement and collision. When making a video game you need to construct all these things that naturally exists in the real world.

A early boy avatar. These are some of the first pictures ever taken inside MilMo.

As you can see the sky is still pretty realistic and the landscape is just basic blocks and shapes, but the feeling is there. We knew pretty early this game was going to be about exploring. We wanted to create a mix between Zelda, Super Mario and Maple Story.There should be puzzles, questing, a social aspect, enemies to fight and secrets to unveil.

A screen shot from an early promotional video.

A lot of concept art was created during this time to determine the right look and feel of the game. Concept art is great, it unites the team's perception of how the game should look and feel. It serves as a guide line for the level artists.

Character concepts for avatars.

We experimented with more realistic looking avatars, but soon settled for the cartoony ones. We aimed for a style of old western comics, nor manga or anime. Many members of the Junebud Crew enjoy drawing and reading comics such as X-Men, Spider Man and the old Super Man, which is shown in the crisp art direction. 

During 2008 the Junebud Crew slowly grew and recruited new members, a mix of old game developer veterans and handpicked new talent from the game development program at the University of Skövde in Sweden. We made all the necessary preparations for moving in to our very first office. In the early beginning all meetings were held on phone and by web cam, since the crew members were spread across the country. That required a lot of discipline and good communication. Today we have an open work space at Junebud, which promotes the communication and reduces the necessary paper work.

Next part of the "History of MilMo" will be focusing on 2009, which was the year things really started to fall in to place and we released the closed beta after 1,5 years of hard work.

See you next time,

Sara and Ivan