modifying Origins custom DLC to work in Awakening

[SiNNeR]

after playing Awakening a few times with imported characters I decided to try to Orlesian Warden. only snag, since I'm not importing a character from Origins, none of the player-made DLC items from Origins are present in Awakening

I've seen various fixes to make BioWare's DLC work in Awakening, but is there any way to modify custom DLC? or better yet a program that makes the modifications by itself?

[Thandal]

... but is there any way to modify custom DLC? or better yet a program that makes the modifications by itself?

Just trying to understand exactly what you're asking. DLC ("Downloadable Content") is the BioWare supplied additional material, much of which you mention already knowing how to get working in Awakening through various workarounds (if they don't already supply a DA:A version, like for "Armor of the Provocateur", or "Bulwark of the True King".)

 

I think when you say "custom DLC" you're referring to the community-developed items, usually known as "mods". Their creation and implementation in the game require the use of the DA Toolset. DA:A uses a different version than DA:O. Whether anything designed for DA:O works in DA:A depends on a number of factors. Some things continue to behave the same way, some things just don't. Whether an author takes the time to learn how to adapt an existing mod to the new environment is up to each one.

 

There are several threads over in the "Modding" section of the DA Forums ( http://www.thenexusforums.com/index.php?/forum/304-modding ) discussing if/how this might be possible, and VeteranGamer just made a HUGE contribution to the community yesterday by researching and posting some details about how some of the various components inside DA:A are packaged. It's a start!

[SiNNeR]

yes I did mean mods, or addons or unofficial DLC or whichever term you prefer

[Thandal]

Ahhh, np. Just wanted to make sure I was responding to the correct issue. Misbehaving DLC can be a whole different problem from misbehaving mods! ;)

 

(That need for authorization by EA's servers can be a bear... :wallbash: )

[DarkeWolf]

Ok, theres a way to do this. But its gonna take some work on your part. And I will tell you right now, that if you dont take my advice about making a backup file of your addins.xml file, and you screw up the edit, that you WILL regret it, as NONE of your mods or DLC's will show up in the game. NONE. At All. AND because you're gonna want a copy of that file again, when you go back to play Origins.

 

so. DISCLAIMER: Make a back up copy of your addins.xml file to another location on your computer BEFORE making any modifications to it. If you don't heed this warning, and you lose all your mods, its not my fault, because I warned you ahead of time

Also... some of the DLC content from Bioware is BLOCKED in Awakening (DAA). Doing this edit will NOT fix that. They will Still be Blocked by DAA. However, there's mods that have been released to get around the block. http://www.dragonagenexus.com do a search for awakening and you'll find the mods that are for that.

 

-- Go to your documents/bioware/dragon age/settings folder

look for a file that is named Addins.xml. Right click on it and choose copy. Open up a locale on your computer that you want to put the backup copy to, and right click on an empty part of the window and choose Paste. There, your backup is made.

 

-- Now go to your original addins.xml file, right click on it while holding down the shift key, and choose open with- choose notepad.exe (if you dont have notepad.exe in the choices already, you'll have to browse to it's location, and if you need to find where it's located, thats what windows search is for ;) ) Otherwise it will open in your default internet browser, and that version isnt editable.

 

--- (OPTIONAL)--- Now that you've got the file opened up in notepad, go up and click file then Save As In the box where it wants the name of the file, name it as Addins.OLD then go down to the next box below that and choose ALL FILES (this is very important!) Then choose to save it there in your settings folder.

The reason to do this is so that you wont have to hunt around for your backup copy when you want to go playing Origins later. You can simply change the filename of your edited copy (DAA version) to addins.OLD and then change the original (DAO copy) back to addins.XML (/OPTIONAL)

 

-- Now that you've got it open in notepad, you're going to go up and click Edit then Find. In the find box, you're going to type in ExtendedModuleUID

This will send notepad looking for what you need to edit. its going to find a line that reads ExtendedModuleUID="Single Player"

 

-- You are going to EDIT ExtendedModuleUID="Single Player" to read ExtendedModuleUID="DAO_PRC_EP_1" WITH the quotes around it. So I recommend highlighting ExtendedModuleUID="DAO_PRC_EP_1" and choosing to copy it, then on the next time around, just highlight the part we need to edit, then paste ExtendedModuleUID="DAO_PRC_EP_1" over it.

 

----- Now go back up to Edit and choose Find Next. This will make notepad find the Next instance of ExtendedModuleUID which we will then need to edit to read ExtendedModuleUID="DAO_PRC_EP_1"

 

---- Repeat this process, editing each instance of it, that it finds, until it doesnt find any more.

 

-- Now when it cant find any more instances of ExtendModuleUID, go up and click File/Save As and choose to name it Addins.xml. Then go to the drop box below it and choose to save it as ALL FILES.

 

Now, a couple of things that I need to mention-

 

1) You're going to need to redo this EVERY time that you add a mod that adds something that you want to carry over to DAA, unless it's already been optimized for both games. As it will add the "SinglePlayer" to the addins.xml file instead of the DAA code. Good news is that you'll only need to do it for the new mods, and not all of them, all over again.

 

2) Any new mods that you add arent going to be added to any of the files that you've got as .OLD So you'll need to find those located in your active Addins.xml file, and edit them into the .old files. This can suck. Its not hard, but it's tedious. AND if you dont get it right, you're right back up at the disclaimer. SO....before that, MAKE ANOTHER BACKUP!

You'll need to add everything that is between, and including <AddInItem> </AddInItem> For that particular mod.

 

3) Now, there's issues with the loading scripts, regardless of if you're playing DAA or DAO. So what I recommend doing, before you make ANY NEW CHARACTER, is to go in, and DEACTIVATE ALL MODS that aren't related to adding hair, eyes, tattoos, stuff like that. Then load the character into the game, play it until you get to a save point, save the game, then exit. REACTIVATE all the mods, and start playing from your savepoint.

This will help alleviate that HUGE headache of trying to get mods to load that dont want to load. Which sometimes, you just CANT get them to load again.

I recommend doing that, before you make a new character for DAO. I recommend doing that Before making a new character for DAA. And I might even recommend doing it before IMPORTING a character into DAA.

 

Sorry for the long read ;)

[DarkeWolf]

And also- Some of the Mod items are also blocked by DAA because they use the same models that were blocked in the DLC. (Because they caused graphic errors due to conflicts with stuff that they recycled for use in DAA). There's a workaround for that.

For instance, if you cant get the say.... Runic Warden armor to transfer over, because it uses the same armor model as Warden Commander armor.

On your final savegame that you would import over, use a mod called the Winter Forge. http://www.dragonagenexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=122

Make an upgrade to the armor WITHOUT RENAMING IT (if you rename it, you'll botch it up because DAA wont recognize it. Or any other item that is made on the forge with a custom name). Such as for instance upgrading it from starmetal to a tier 9 metal. Then resave the game, and import the character into DAA.

 

IF you've already got that character IN DAA, then you'll need to delete them, before you can RE-import them.

 

Go to documents/bioware/dragon age/characters. You'll find a list of all your characters there. Look for a folder that has a 1 at the end of it's name.

Like JohnDoe and JohnDoe1. That will be (a) character that is from DAA. Just delete that JohnDoe1 folder or move it out of the bioware folder, and import the character again.

[Thandal]

@SiNNeR; Essentially, mod makers would have to go through a similar process for each of their creations using the Toolset to make a DA:A version. Then, (to the extent they were willing to do so) test it in the DA:A environment to ensure the new version didn't break something else.

 

One example that I knew of was the "Anytime World Map" mod. The author had posted both versions here on Nexus, but they seem to be gone now. :confused: (I just serached for them to get the link...)

[DarkeWolf]

 

One example that I knew of was the "Anytime World Map" mod. The author had posted both versions here on Nexus, but they seem to be gone now. :confused: (I just serached for them to get the link...)

Noob776 requested to have his mods taken off the site when he couldn't agree with the staff and left to go to social.bioware. If you go to their projects section and do a search for maps, it comes up at the bottom of the page. http://social.bioware.com/browse_bw_projects.php?page_num=1&project_search=map&view=0&project_category_id=&sort=1

[RustyBlade]

1) You're going to need to redo this EVERY time that you add a mod that adds something that you want to carry over to DAA, unless it's already been optimized for both games. As it will add the "SinglePlayer" to the addins.xml file instead of the DAA code. Good news is that you'll only need to do it for the new mods, and not all of them, all over again.

I posted the following in another thread but it is worth reposting here:

 

You can eliminate that hassle by making a duplicate entry of the entire mod's entry in the file, the original for the Single Player and the duplicate for the dao_prc_ep1. The entry will start out looking like this:

<AddInItem UID="inno_pp" Name="Name of the Mod" ExtendedModuleUID="Single Player" Priority="100" Enabled="1" State="2" Format="1">

<Title DefaultText="Name of the Mod">

 

Keep scrolling down through until you get to the end of it and you will see:

</Publisher>

<PrereqList/>

</AddInItem>

 

Copy it all, make a new line after </AddInItem> and paste. Then find the ExtendedModuleUID="Single Player" line in the new entry and change it to read ExtendedModuleUID="dao_prc_ep_1" and the mod should work in both Origins and Awakening without having to change it every time.

[DarkeWolf]

I remember a thread like that. There was another member that was advocating for the method that I posted. I was actually arguing (not arguing, suggesting) for the method that you just posted, as well. So yes, I do TOTALLY agree that this method that you posted is a MUCH better method to use.

 

However, after that thread... I got to thinking about it, and realized that for somebody who is new to dealing with code, there's a larger margin for error. Bits that a person that is new to code editing could miss. Or overwrite, in their pastes. And thus botch up the entire file by accident, resulting in an addins.xml file that doesnt work.

 

So...being uncertain with the OP's familiarity and experience with editing code, I decided to go with the safer, easier method. Even tho...again....I myself very strongly believe that the method you're suggesting to be, in the long run, the much better method. Since it doesnt require the filename changes afterwards that the method I posted about does. But again, it's more tedious, it requires being a lot more careful not to screw those lines of code up.

LOL I chose caution over practicallity, I guess is the short way of saying it. :laugh:

 

 

MUCH thanks for the input Rusty :thumbsup:

@SiNNer- both methods DO work. Its just a matter of personal choice of which one to use. One is much safer and less work. The other is much more practical, but has a much larger margin of error, and I REALLY suggest making that backup file before trying it out :)