> > > I don’t think it’s completely 343’s fault that they’re gone. I think it was mostly the 360’s ageing tech that was the problem and the lack of time.
> > >
> > > It can already be seen that 343 have no intention of letting cannon get in the way of game play. eg Griffball, Covenant/Promethean equipment.
> > >
> > > The armor in Halo 4 looks kinda incomplete as it is. Missing sets like CQB, Mk V, ODST etc and I’ve noticed things in S ops like DiMarco’s leg armor not being available in the armory.
> > >
> > > Remember that there was so much content that they couldn’t cram it into the one disc.
> > >
> > > 343 probably saw from the start that there wasn’t going to be enough time and space for Elites so they put their efforts towards the Spartans.
> > >
> > > The X1 will provide the up to date tech for Elites and all the other goodies we want, hopefully 343 will be given the proper amount of time to do it.
> >
> > So they had limited space? How the heck did they get something as massive as forge island into the game then? As far as I know, that was completely unplanned on 343i’s part and was brought into the game due to the shout outs from the forge community.
> >
> > I’m not trying to challenge you, but the speculation you gave doesn’t seem to add up when they were able to add stuff after release. Why give us a giant forge map, but not elites?
>
> Multiplayer is now canon. No significant human-friendly sangheili forces have been mentioned in game. Creating an entire playable character is far more difficult than a mere forge map. Examples below:
>
> -armory customization (colors, pieces, etc.)
> -emblem location on armor
> -integrating HUD cameras
> -rescripting and coding fuctions such as weapon pick up, reloading, swapping weapons, etc.
> -allowing base player traits to be modified for customs/forge
> -enabling the usage of powerups, and AAs to be usable by elites
> -scripting the ability for a player elite to be on a multiplayer map
> -vehicle usage animations for elites
>
> You see, it’s quite a list and I’m sure I haven’t said everything. But I sure as hell hope they return 
You added stuff in there that really isn’t all that necessary. The Elite model animations for every vehicle in the game are already in the game, Elites can and will get into human vehicles if you leave them laying around in close proximity, and any animation to carry a Storm Rifle, Plasma Pistol, or Fuel Rod Gun can be reused for any UNSC or Forerunner weapon of similar proportion. The only unique animations being the Sword, which Elites already have, and the Hammer, as well as proper reloading animations which already exist in the game’s code for all the Covenant and Forerunner weapons Elites carry in Campaign and Spartan Ops, so it’d just be a little bit of wireframe work.
Weapon pickup is a player trait, and player traits would carry over no matter what player model you are, as the “player” and the “model” are actually two different things. As well, base player traits apply to the player, not the player’s model. And the only AA’s that would need any integration would be the Regen Field, Hardlight Shield, Thrust Pack, and Turret, and only because they have unique animations. Which is again simple wireframe work.
The Armour for Elites already exists in the campaign, so the only hurdle would be colouring them, and creating a UI in the Armoury menu (which is honestly not that hard or time consuming).
There is no reason the Elites should have a different HUD from the Spartan HUD, the only reason they did in Halo 3, and Reach was by the developers’ choice. And in Halo 2 the only difference was the colour. The only first person thing the developers would need to develop is the hands and reload animations, not that big a deal considering they were able to animate your hands for every single wrist permutation, colour, and skin for the Spartans. As well as the feet. Making a few more, or simply having a couple of less options for the Spartans wouldn’t have killed the game.
Putting the emblem on the armour would be no different from doing it for every single Spartan shoulder in the game. Not a hurdle since it proves that they can do it. Or they could simple do what they did in Reach and make it so the emblem doesn’t appear on the Elites, just on the Spartans.
And finally, if they were able to script Elites on to every map in Halo 2, 3, AND Reach. As well as script every weapon onto them in Halo 2, Reach, and 4 (Halo 3 being something of an exception for whatever reason). There’s no reason they couldn’t do it again in Halo 4. Besides, several Covenant models are scripted onto the multiplayer maps that appear in Spartan Ops. And most of the maps in the game use ripped information from Campaign missions to get all their texturing info.
As for the plot. There being no UNSC friendly Elites was not a necessary or important plot decision. They didn’t put them in because they chose not to, the game would have been no different if they just added a line or two implying that friendly Elites were on board the Infinity. And used a couple of CG models from other cutscenes to have a few appear in the background. The story would have been unaffected.
You talk like making a player model requires you to basically rewrite the entire code that makes a player to begin with. But it doesn’t. You just apply a skin over the player. It’s really no different from giving a Spartan a different helmet. (Aside from your helmet not affecting your character’s animations). Everything else they have to add is either wireframe work for 3rd person animation, and 1st person Hud elements. All of which is pretty trivial since the vast majority of animations require already exist in their AI code.
They don’t even need to bother going the extra mile Bungie did in Reach of making Elite players have different statistics than Spartan players. All they have to do is shrink the Campaign model, and scale the campaign animations and hitboxes to roughly .8x the size so they align in height and width with a Spartan (which if you’ve played the modded gametypes Mini Slayer or the giant Flood/Spartan modes, you know is actually pretty easy for them to do). Which could have the Canonical explanation that for whatever reason the simulation program on the Infinity won’t render one “player” as a different size than another “player”.
All of which is far more difficult than building a map. Building a map requires you to create the geometry (with the level of required detail to look like it belongs in the game, in Halo 4’s case, that’s a lot of detail), as well as texturing, and in the case of a Forge map, creating all the pieces (Forge World features new skins for every structure piece, and several new pieces that didn’t exist before). And Forge World needed to create the water, which was animated, and the mist above the water near the islands. As well as that beautiful skybox which is unique to the map.
I’m not sure how much you know about game design. But it sounds like it’s not a whole lot. I spent a lot of time modding PC games to create new maps, campaign levels, character skins and models, weapons, etc. Trust me, making a new character model is one of the easier things to do (though not as easy as creating a new character skin. But that should be obvious).