> A few lines of script that can be copy/pasted into each map can be done with an update I believe. If there are updates like TU in Halo Reach and the Halo 2 & 3 Gameplay updates, I believe it is definitely possible.
It’s really not that simple. It was attempted by 343, but they couldn’t get it in time for the TU’s release. The patches for previous Halo titles did not modify the existing content on maps.
> It was attempted by 343, but they couldn’t get it in time for the TU’s release.
They have 4 months. They should get to work.
> It was attempted by 343, but they couldn’t get it in time for the TU’s release.
They have 4 months. They should get to work.
> > It was attempted by 343, but they couldn’t get it in time for the TU’s release.
>
> They have 4 months. They should get to work.
It’s not going to happen. There are many more important things that need to be finished over getting new player skins. They are still tweaking the overall game, working on Spartan Ops, probably creating the DLC maps, and stomping out bugs before the game goes gold. We have 8 weeks before the game goes gold, it is crunch time, and will not be wasted on something that wasn’t even planned in the first place.
> It’s not going to happen. There are many more important things that need to be finished over getting new player skins. They are still tweaking the overall game, working on Spartan Ops, probably creating the DLC maps
This is the problem with the gaming industry these day’s. To busy working on content that they will charge you for later that’s already on the disk as opposed to time spent developing content usable at launch.
> > It’s not going to happen. There are many more important things that need to be finished over getting new player skins. They are still tweaking the overall game, working on Spartan Ops, probably creating the DLC maps
>
> This is the problem with the gaming industry these day’s. To busy working on content that they will charge you for later that’s already on the disk as opposed to time spent developing content usable at launch.
You mean working on content that will be released at a later date because it will not be finished when the game goes into printing? There are things called deadlines, you know.
> You mean working on content that will be released at a later date because it will not be finished when the game goes into printing? There are things called deadlines, you know.
I know, and that’s totally fair if its not complete. But there has been fair amount of “DLC” complete and loaded onto the disc and the “download” for it does nothing but unlock it. Gears of War 3 being an example again.
Id prefer development time for DLC begin after launch so they have more time for thing’s like Elite’s in MM.
I do love playing as Elites in MM but I’m more concerned about Custom Games and Forge. If Elites aren’t in either of those it might be a hard blow to machinimas.
I don’t think anyone can say what is possible for 343 unless they have actually worked for a video game developing company. I just know that the community wants playable elites in the new halo. I can understand if its just not possible for them to get them in halo 4 but just throwing aside such a large part of their customers opinions would be stupid to me. I think thos thread proves that 343s fans want them back in and I have faith that 343 will listen to us and eventually geve us playable elites.
BRING ELITES BACK 343
> > You mean working on content that will be released at a later date because it will not be finished when the game goes into printing? There are things called deadlines, you know.
>
> I know, and that’s totally fair if its not complete. But there has been fair amount of “DLC” complete and loaded onto the disc and the “download” for it does nothing but unlock it. Gears of War 3 being an example again.
>
> Id prefer development time for DLC begin after launch so they have more time for thing’s like Elite’s in MM.
Waiting for launch to work on DLC does not make sense. They are not going to sit on their hands and do nothing between going gold and launch to make the DLC. They will be worked on at the same time at the game, but not actually be finished by the time the game goes gold, and thus is omitted.
Never played Gears, I don’t know what you’re referring to specifically. Are you talking about the weapon skins?
Elites aren’t planned for Halo 4 in the first place; they aren’t going to add them in so late.
I have no idea what are you talking about. How can you say that adding Elites to multi-player means somehow to add their model to each map? That makes no sense. Elite game model like any other game models will be in the core game files saved just once. I see no reason why would every map had to have all the possible objects (which can be present) saved extra. That would be a lot of redundant data. Surely they don’t have saved all possible Spartan armors saved in each map. If the game engine is flexible enough, it should be possible just add the data (the models) and they don’t have to change any code at all. In the worse case, they would only need few lines of code in each map to load a different content, but I don’t believe that they would not have their development tools so inflexible, that this would be the case.
The only thing which would require significant amount of work would be if they needed to add AI to the Elites. If they were different (even just the size), they would need to give them new … checkpoints … or how do they call them. These checkpoints are used for AI to be able to walk around the map. It’s a path-finding issue, which is in most cases solved by an A* algorithm. But even then, it should not be very different, if different at all. It is more of a problem of creating new map than adding new model.
But I think that I have heard they don’t want those kind of multi-player maps have bots. So that should not be the case.
But it is most likely that they will not add them regardless what we say. They have their plan and they will not change it because of us. It is just too dangerous.
Interesting… HALO 4 is about to come out and I am much more excited about HALO 5.
Obviously 343 aren’t going to include Elites as playable characters, but it’s absolutely baffling to me why not. Because of the canon? To hell with the canon. Canon in multiplayer is nice until it begins limiting the range of customization options open to the player. If you want a canon reason for Elite (or Brute, or whatever) skins in multiplayer, how about players who choose alien character skins are considered “active hologram units” designed to shake up the Infinity’s training exercises or something? That little bit of nonsense should satisfy plenty of people, and it took me like twelve seconds to think up.
I mean, this obviously isn’t going to be a major issue for anyone and it won’t affect the quality of the game (because come on, it just won’t). It’s just one of those dumb little things that makes me wonder why certain customization options are being left out rather than built upon.
> <mark>I have no idea what are you talking about. How can you say that adding Elites to multi-player means somehow to add their model to each map? That makes no sense. Elite game model like any other game models will be in the core game files saved just once. I see no reason why would every map had to have all the possible objects (which can be present) saved extra. That would be a lot of redundant data. Surely they don’t have saved all possible Spartan armors saved in each map. If the game engine is flexible enough, it should be possible just add the data (the models) and they don’t have to change any code at all.</mark> In the worse case, they would only need few lines of code in each map to load a different content, but I don’t believe that they would not have their development tools so inflexible, that this would be the case.
> The only thing which would require significant amount of work would be if they needed to add AI to the Elites. If they were different (even just the size), they would need to give them new … checkpoints … or how do they call them. These checkpoints are used for AI to be able to walk around the map. It’s a path-finding issue, which is in most cases solved by an A* algorithm. But even then, it should not be very different, if different at all. It is more of a problem of creating new map than adding new model.
> But I think that I have heard they don’t want those kind of multi-player maps have bots. So that should not be the case.
>
> But it is most likely that they will not add them regardless what we say. They have their plan and they will not change it because of us. It is just too dangerous.
>
> Interesting… HALO 4 is about to come out and I am much more excited about HALO 5.
To be perfectly honest, it sounds like you have no idea what you are talking about, in Halo 3 & Reach, the armour was nor stored to the side, a post from Bungie.net says this:
> Because the maps are not setup to support it.
>
> All of the maps in the game carry all of the image files that the game needs to construct the particular match you are in.
>
> To add Armor DLC would require everyone to download all of the maps just to see it.
from user Methew
What ever 343i had planned for Reach will be a mystery to us probably forever, time will tell if they can do what they planned for Reach in Halo 4, but don’t expect it.
In Halo 4, your career is focused around your own Custom Spartan IV, if they were to add elites, they would have to update the UI in the menu’s to add a whole other section for Elites, Elites displaying in lobbies like Spartan IVs do.
It is a heck of a lot of work for something that is likely going to be rectified in Halo 5, they would prefer to works their butts off making Map DLC & Spartan Ops missions which will make them a lot more money than a few Elite Armour skins which will cost a heck of a lot more money and make them less.
Confirmation from Evil Otto, a Bungie Employee, that Armour DLC for Reach was impossible.
So that means we could still get elites as a DLC package on certain DLC maps… 
right
> So that means we could still get elites as a DLC package on certain DLC maps… right
Don’t see why not later on down the line… I’d gladly pay for them.
No playable Elites in MP for me is the only major let down for me in Halo 4.
> So that means we could still get elites as a DLC package on certain DLC maps… right
Unlikely, they still need to change the UI in the games menus to work with Elites.
They cant add elites, you would need to code them into old maps which would be gigs of data that everyone needs to download, then harddriveless people are screwed. Then you can’t have it in dlc maps cause then what happens when a non dlc map pops up?
hmm… i think in someways bungie, and now 343 forgot where the shooters came from. Maybe its the difference between consoles and pc. I know in quake series, its never an issue about the player model because you can force it to use a particular one. Im very often asked "zohar, why are you using a female model? I reply back "I come from a quake 2 background. Female models were easier on ears because of the sound, standard hitbox because everybody had it if you forced it, and because of the force model command. What this allowed is everybody to play how they want to. If you were pro type, you could make the game display only certain type of models to make the hitbox identical no matter what. if you didn’t care, it allowed people to use whatever model they choose. Why does playing on a console have to give you limited options?
PS: sadly i dont recall the force model command in quake 2 anymore. lol
> > <mark>I have no idea what are you talking about. How can you say that adding Elites to multi-player means somehow to add their model to each map? That makes no sense. Elite game model like any other game models will be in the core game files saved just once. I see no reason why would every map had to have all the possible objects (which can be present) saved extra. That would be a lot of redundant data. Surely they don’t have saved all possible Spartan armors saved in each map. If the game engine is flexible enough, it should be possible just add the data (the models) and they don’t have to change any code at all.</mark> In the worse case, they would only need few lines of code in each map to load a different content, but I don’t believe that they would not have their development tools so inflexible, that this would be the case.
> > The only thing which would require significant amount of work would be if they needed to add AI to the Elites. If they were different (even just the size), they would need to give them new … checkpoints … or how do they call them. These checkpoints are used for AI to be able to walk around the map. It’s a path-finding issue, which is in most cases solved by an A* algorithm. But even then, it should not be very different, if different at all. It is more of a problem of creating new map than adding new model.
> > But I think that I have heard they don’t want those kind of multi-player maps have bots. So that should not be the case.
> >
> > But it is most likely that they will not add them regardless what we say. They have their plan and they will not change it because of us. It is just too dangerous.
> >
> > Interesting… HALO 4 is about to come out and I am much more excited about HALO 5.
>
> To be perfectly honest, it sounds like you have no idea what you are talking about, in Halo 3 & Reach, the armour was nor stored to the side, a post from Bungie.net says this:
>
>
>
> > Because the maps are not setup to support it.
> >
> > All of the maps in the game carry all of the image files that the game needs to construct the particular match you are in.
> >
> > To add Armor DLC would require everyone to download all of the maps just to see it.
>
> from user Methew
>
> What ever 343i had planned for Reach will be a mystery to us probably forever, time will tell if they can do what they planned for Reach in Halo 4, but don’t expect it.
>
> In Halo 4, your career is focused around your own Custom Spartan IV, if they were to add elites, they would have to update the UI in the menu’s to add a whole other section for Elites, Elites displaying in lobbies like Spartan IVs do.
>
> It is a heck of a lot of work for something that is likely going to be rectified in Halo 5, they would prefer to works their butts off making Map DLC & Spartan Ops missions which will make them a lot more money than a few Elite Armour skins which will cost a heck of a lot more money and make them less.
>
> Confirmation from Evil Otto, a Bungie Employee, that Armour DLC for Reach was impossible.
I indeed said that I have no idea what the problem was. And now, I am more confused than before. It just makes no sense.
Lets elaborate that a little bit:
A “map” is (as it’s name assumes) supposed to be a geographical part of reality, which is limited enough to fit in the game. That means it has to have some physical boundaries - sky-box, terrain, all sorts of geometry. It has it’s navi-points for AI, it has hitboxes for it’s objects, but those are more likely bound to the geometry and most likely they do not need any more specific data to define them (only in special cases maybe). Now, you maybe need some scripted events if map has some movable parts of it’s static environment, but let’s not go too deep.
What I meant to say is that it is only logical for some models, objects etc which appear in every map (Spartans, Elites, some kind of geomtry like corridors etc) to be saved outside the map. The map would only need a link to the model and few additional info (the starting screen has to know what player models are available). Why would every map need that model?
Well, if you wanted a map with a Mickey Mouse who would only ever appear in that map, it would somehow make sense to add his data only to that map.
Maybe that link you provided does not explain it at all since it is talking about something completely different. It probably says, that it is not possible to add new armor ONCE THE GAME IS OUT, since when you update the game models, you have to say: “those models are available for the old maps”. And it seems to me that they would have to reload the old maps again with that small change… Or I don’t know, I think that if it was simple change (like the link and the additional info), it should be possible to send only the small information and it would patch differentially. This is how patching works, right? But the reason they say it is not possible is, that the map is HUGE and even a small change is a problem. Not because the patch would take forever to load… NO, not that. But the final complete map must be stored somewhere not fragmented. And because game disc cannot be updated, it would have to make a copy on the XBOX hardrive where the map would be in it’s final state with that small change. I believe that is the issue that post is talking about.
But that is problem when the Game is already finished and on discs in stores.
But all the other reasons (with the HUD, balance and everything) makes it clear that they will not include them at all. Maybe only on few new maps. But I doubt it. As it was said, it is not very profitable.
I know you guys love Elites and so do I, but you need to stop being so blind and arrogant. It just is not possible right now and it is definitely one of the least important things for Halo 4 to have.
Just restrain yourselves and wait to see what the future holds.
343i listens to the community, give them time and they will listen and they we see if they can do anything about it.
Heck, they gave us dropable weapons.
