Prevent gear from *not * showing ingame?

[ChaironDeCeleste]

Hence I can't figure out why exactly some custom items like the Tevinter Warden gear reliantly shows up for each active player char and if need be on each saved game load, while others only spawn once and solely for 1 player char and then never again.

- how do I avoid / mend that?

- any info, link to a guide et c.welcome, pm as well welcome

[DarkeWolf]

theres a couple of things that you can try to correct this. Tho, I will say this right off the bat. If you're patched up to patch 1.03 then that is most likely the cause of the problem as it actually BLOCKS some mods from loading.

 

If you are NOT patched to 1.03 or have NOT installed Awakening. Heres a couple of things you can try.

The patch aside, there's a big reason for why this happens. Its because of what I refer to as savegame bleedover. Its because the mod sees that the item(s) have been given once to a character in a saved game. Therefor, it doesnt give them again to a new character.

 

Method 1) UNINSTALL (not deactivate, UNINSTALL) the mod that has issues. Start the game, and force load the savegame of the character having the issue. Do nothing in game, except for create a NEW save game, and lable it something that will not be named like any other savegame. Example- Clean Save One

Exit the game. Reinstall the mod. Load Clean Save One, and see if it worked.

 

Method 2) Should that Fail, go into your documents/bioware/dragon age/characters folder. Make a permanent backup of all your character savegames folders that are located therein. I repeat...make BACKUPS, because you are going to be deleting some of them. I myself have been trained to never trust a backup, so to have 2-3 copies of these files. Its good advice, because sometimes data can be corrupted while being made.

 

Once your backups have been made, delete ALL the folders EXCEPT for the character having the issue. Load the clean save one. This should work, unless you've got patch 1.03. If mod loads items correctly, save the game. Exit game, and reinstall your deleted characters. Test them to make sure they work, and then go have fun.

 

IF it's patch 1.03/Awakening, you're pretty much out of luck. You can either A) Be very unhappy with Bioware for making it so that you cant run these mods on new characters and deal with not being able to have them. Or B) UNINSTALL the game, and remove the dragon age registry entries from your registry, and then reinstall the game, patching up to only patch 1.02 and then be angry with Bioware.

DO NOT PATCH thru the game. It will patch you right back up to 1.03. Use google, yahoo, whatever, and find the patches online, and manually put them in.

 

 

 

Good luck!

 

edit- Oh, I forgot to mention this- to avoid this in the future, its a safe bet to backup and delete the other characters BEFORE making a new character, so that there's no chance of the bleedover.

Edited April 15, 2010 by DarkeWolf

[ChaironDeCeleste]

Thanks for taking the time to answer - much apprecuiated.

 

'Of course' it is Awakening and level 1.03. :biggrin:

 

I've decided to be rather angry with the publisher

than with BioWare - it is rather ea's strategy and fits with

other ea published games from different game dev houses...

 

Blocking mods from loading as in local, on the customer's pc

or online, as in 'a remote server applies the changes after a

login and the changes become permanent for the current

installtion on the local hdd'?..

 

Either way that would mean blocking the community out

through the backdoor.

 

- and I hope nobody who remembers the long history of BioWare's

cooperation with their game communities thinks they would want

any part of the current misery

- heck, some of Bioware's most brilliant associates are former

Neverwinter Nights 1 community modders.

[DarkeWolf]

yeah, some of the things that have happened since EA took over, are pretty sad. They have a really bad habit of making good/great companies into baby factories for mediocracy.

As of right now, BW hasnt even recognized (officially) the problems with awakening/patch 1.03. :sad:

 

Essentially, the way that the block works, is that it's a list of gear that uses specific meshes or names. In the game load sequence, prior to savegame loading, the game looks at the addins that are loading up into the game, and if it sees a blacklisted piece, it prevents it's scripts from loading the item into the game.

This was not intended to affect DAO, only DAA. However, somewhere, somebody screwed the pooch.

This doesnt affect items that were loaded up prior to the patch 1.03/daa install, only afterwards, or on characters created afterwards.

 

pretty ugly mess really. Not to mention that thanks to EA, we can only install/reinstall the game 4 times :angry:

[brokenergy]

BW are working on a patch at the moment (http://social.bioware.com/forum/1/topic/127/index/2274831/1) but is disappointing that they are failing customer services. They had to merge with EA because of TOR and bad business practices. Maybe Awakening could be the 'I told you so' to EA to stick out to BW's business and let them do their job.