Resurrecting O-R-B's Dev Diary lost to Time (Original Site Shutdown) PART 1&2

[Leviticus]

The Dev diary was originally lost to time when Gamespy went offline forever, even google cached pages cannot recover the diary pages. However, thanks to the Wayback Machine, (internet archive) The Dev Diary has been infact resurrected. I'm reposting the original 6 part Diary (minus the broken images) below in the spirit of historical preservation. Its fascinating to see what the game was originally planned to be, dev hurtles, insight, and to find out that the game designer later worked on games such as Far Cry 3, Tomb Raider 2013, and so on. Baby steps, am I right?

The individual "parts" were entries released over several months in the year 2000, though dates stopped being tracked after part 2.

O-R-B Dev Diary Resurrected

Part 1

Orb Development Diary
Jamie McNeely, Executive Producer at Strategy First speaks about creating the 3D real-time strategy game O.R.B.
By - Jamie McNeely (05/02/00)

My name is Jamie McNeely and I am the Executive Producer at Strategy First. Currently, I am working on the 3D real-time strategy game O.R.B.
As you may know, O.R.B. is set in a solar system where the inhabitants of two planets have recently achieved space travel capabilities. The game centers on their fight to control a vast resource-rich asteroid belt that constantly revolves around their planets. Everything in the solar system is moving; a base that you build on an asteroid will end up in enemy space within a fairly short time. Most of the single player campaign is set in this environment. Your job is to build and control a fleet of combat vessels to fight the enemy, research new technology to stay one step ahead of them, and ensure that you have the resources necessary achieve all of this.
As those who follow the games industry know the Electronic Entertainment Expo, or E3 as it is more popularly known, is less than two weeks away. All over the world, developers are spending countless, sleepless hours preparing their brainchild for its first exposure to the gaming public. All over the globe, publishers are scrambling to line up last minute appointments with media and buyers, and preparing press kits and buyer's kits. The E3 show promises to be very exciting for Strategy First. We are showing three titles: O.R.B., Disciples II: Dark Prophecy, and Submarine Titans.
As I mentioned earlier, my primary concern is O.R.B. The preparations are reaching a fever pitch here. For the next week the O.R.B. team will continue to add the polish to the version we are showing at E3. The environment graphics have been finalized from the massive asteroids that orbit the planets to the volumetric dust that obscures units as they move through the belt. Unit graphics are constantly tweaked and this will continue right to the end of the project. Another team member is busily finalizing the in-game interface.
As I write this diary (April 30), Yanick Blenkhorn, the Lead Designer and Project Leader, is working on the mechanics for the Malus shock troops. Shock troops serve two purposes; they can land on and capture immobilized enemy fighters and they can repair friendly ones. Yesterday, Yanick showed me some new debris and damage effects. He blew up several units and left a ships graveyard full of super-heated hull pieces.
One of the features in O.R.B. that really shines is the squad management system. As ships are built they are assigned to squadrons that can be easily accessed anywhere in the game world via hotkeys or by clicking on the squad leader's icon. To add more flexibility, the team just added the ability to break squad up into wings. Wings can be made up of one or more ships and can be given orders independent of the rest of the squad. With a single click the squad can be reformed and ready for action. This system will make the player's job of managing units a great deal easier.
We still have many hours to go but O.R.B. is looking good for the big show. I'll have another O.R.B. diary for you soon.

Part II

Orb Development Diary: Part II
Phil O'Connor, co-Producer on ORB at Strategy First speaks about creating the 3D real-time strategy game O.R.B.
By - Phil O'Connor (06/05/00)

Hi gang, I'm Phil O'Connor, co-Producer on ORB and a couple of other projects here at Strategy First Inc. I am also affectionately known here as Philoc (The Herald of Doom) and Sarcasmo (The AntiChimp). Future installments by yours truly will be entitled "Word of Sarcasmo."
I have been at SFI for a year and a bit now. Before that, I was in the purgatory that is called "management consulting." I used to make simulation-based training games for big companies like the Bank of Montreal and Boeing. My best work (as in most fun) was for Boeing in Seattle, where I got to design a multiplayer (LAN) airline simulation. It was a training game for airline executives that bought planes from the Big Bee. Basically, design is my bread and butter, and I have been playing all kinds of games since I was 12 (that was 19 years ago, what age does that make me kids?).
I am a wargamer/sim guy at heart (and by sheer coincidence, I used to be an army reservist). I like Close Combat, shooters (the best mod for Half-Life is Action Beta 3), Rogue Spear, a little driving and racing once and a while, and air combat sims (Jane's ATF was a three year obsession). My all time favorite game is X-COM (the first), and I am currently playing Carmageddon 2 (and having a blast). I love games, and they love me.
My main job on ORB is game design (specifically the combat system), but I have had some input on interface and game features. My job is to fine-tune things, like damage, hull points, and speeds, so that it reflects the exact flavor of combat we want our players to get. That's not all I do, but it's a good part of my contribution to ORB. So if you find yourself saying things like: "damn these fighters are cheap" or "those missiles are brutal" while playing ORB, you will have no one to blame (or thank) but me.
My big milestone recently was E3. It was almost three weeks ago, but I'm still feeling pretty good about it. It was our first chance to show the game to a large audience of industry and media people who are generally a critical bunch. The show was an opportunity to test the concept outside of the company for the first time, and then you realize just how insulated a development team environment can get (especially when you are locked into an office together for three weeks straight with only bread and water for sustenance).
ORB takes a radically different approach to the RTS genre. A good marketing slogan would be: "We Put the Strategy back in Real Time". Or maybe "rtS", as in capital "S", get it? Never mind. Basically I was a little worried that our flavor of RTS would be perceived as too "high brow." I know wargaming is a bad word in some circles, but I have been heavily influenced by real world military strategy and tactics in the design of ORB combat, especially weapon development and ship types.
We have taken the tact in the development team whereby anytime we wanted something to be a certain way there had to be a "reason". Even though we could have easily just included stuff "just because" (its our world and we can make it up as we go along), we deliberately stayed away from that because we felt that the game overall would make more sense to the player if we could justify everything in it to ourselves, and it made sense according to our own internal criteria.

NEXT: Game philosophy... (NOTE: The original dev diary had the "NEXT" sections as hyperlinks to a second page per diary entry.)

When I started working on ORB, I started looking at other 3D view games and RTSs. Those games that merged the two, generally did not pay attention to interface and control in my opinion. A game interface has to give you all the tools you need to actually play the game, and some of the titles I surveyed were great on the eye-candy, but had boring strategy and/or a very bad interface. I realized that ORB had to write the book on interface for this style of game, because frankly there aren't that many games like it out there, and the ones I've seen have done it badly.
Those who saw it at E3 seemed to agree. When I showed off the squadron system for organizing and locating your ships, the response was basically "of course!" It was, for us, a no-brainer that a 3D RTS should have a method of organizing your ships into units that also acts as a fleet menu as well as place holder. The ability to switch between a 2D overview map and the 3D camera between main screen and sidebar window was also well received.
Basically, the team's philosophy of letting the player see what he wants when he wants seems to be a good one. It's nice to get confirmation that we are on the right track.
Another cool thing we showed off at the show was a little combat, and people liked it. They especially liked the ships breaking apart and the pieces of debris drifting in the fireball. I received a lot of comments on how good the graphic detail is at both point blank range and maximum zoom. Both the interiors of the asteroid bases and the panorama of the system, with the sun shining brightly at the center of the swirling asteroid belt, look spectacular. Basically, the show re-charged my developer batteries (thanks for all the compliments).
We are going to need the extra energy because we still have a lot of work to do. The guys are currently working on fine-tuning the ship maneuvering AI such as evading fire and attack patterns that are target-specific.
For example, fighters attacking other fighters maneuver differently than if they are attacking a capital ship. They are also adding a lot more functionality to the scenario editor, something that is going to become key to a smooth beta test period (especially if we do a public beta test…), and we are constantly making adjustments to the navigation, avoidance, and path finding with each new integration.
Basically, we are all busy little beavers, working hard to provide you, the gamer, with quality entertainment value.
Cheers from Sarcasmo and all of us at ORB Dev Inc.