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Origin sabotaged my install


Rubarack

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I have DAO from back when games came on discs, and because I'm an idiot also have Origin installed on my system. So, EA being cartoonish villains they are had Origin replace my disc based exe with one that required an origin install. In the process it also deleted all my mod installs.

 

The obvious question was "what the actual &^%£!" But also is this just going to keep on happening? Is Origin going to continually infect itself onto my installs? Has this been happening to anyone else? Unfortunately (possibly due to the irritating naming conventions) it's hard to Google problems with Dragon age Origins down to Origin but I haven't heard anything about this.

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I have had almost every PC install of DAO (except a Steam one) and have never had a particular problem with getting mods to work with any of them. I've switched to EA/Origin installs exclusively and continue to have no problem using my mods. (Same for the ME-series, by the way. Now playing with EA/Origin installs, even for ME1.)

 

Perhaps if you would provide a little information regarding the specific mods in question, and what you *think* has happened, we might be able to help..

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Leaving speculation out of it, here's what happened.

 

Back when it was on the free games promotion I got Dragon Age Origins but cancelled the install.

 

I then installed Dragon Age Origins from a disk and patched it up to 1.04

 

I added the following mods.

 

Dragon Age Redesigned

Improved Atmosphere (Don't have the specific modules to hand)

Advanced Tactics

Alley of Murders

Auto Loot

Dalish Mage Origin

Extra Dog Slot

FtG UI Mod - More readable fonts and UI

Make Console Commands Visible

Morrigan Restoration Patch

No Helmet Hack

Utility Sack

 

I then played a bit, loaded and saved games everything worked fine. Then I played TitanFall and Origin booted up, updated itself, then installed an update to Dragon Age Origins. Note that Dragon Age Origins wasn't installed via Origin at all.

 

When I next tried to load Dragon Age Origins from the folder it was installed to it first asked for my Origin username/password, and when I started it I got a message saying the above mods weren't installed.

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Right, so I use five of those myself and recommend against two of them (DA Redesigned, and IA) unless you really, really know what you're doing.

 

First things first, was your working (retail disc) install the "Ultimate Edition", or the "Standard + separate DLC"?

 

Next, when you got the error message had you launched the game from a previously created desktop shortcut, or from within EA/Origin?

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Those two were definitely the most time-intensive installs, while I can't be absolutely certain I got everything right I spent a good amount of time following the installation instructions so I'm pretty sure they were installed correctly. Even then I can't see any mistake I could have made that could have caused this issue.

 

The version I installed from was an old-school disc. It had the Stone Prisoner code in it but that's all. That DLC was unaffected by this issue.

 

I first tried to launch the game from a desktop shortcut but that no longer led anywhere. The start menu had an additional shortcut which led to the origin version, and when I went to program folder DAOlauncher.exe had gone and the DAOrigins.exe had changed. When I attempted to launch this it opened Origin, before launching Origins.

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I recommend against DA-Redesigned and IA not because they aren't great mods, but because they require significant manual steps to install, or require making "non-standard" changes to get them installed, or make changes to the base game that are impossible to undo by removing the mod, or all three. If you're totally comfortable with how the game itself interacts with those mods, and they make changes you like, and you don't mind the potential downsides, then go for it!

 

But back to your situation...

 

The "DALauncher.exe" was removed by EA a few years ago. Any updates applied through EA/Origin will make that change (and the same for DA2 and the ME-series). If you previously had shortcuts that invoked the Launcher they are now dead. There was only one feature in the Launcher that is now difficult to find, but the "Configure" program is still in the game's program files; you just have to look for it.

 

Not sure what you mean by "... When I attempted to launch this it opened Origin, before launching Origins." I just launched my copy of DAO by double-clicking on "C:\Program Files (x86)\Origin Games\Dragon Age\bin_ship\daorigins.exe" and it don't fire-up EA/Origin at all.

 

What's the path to your main game executable?

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I can definitely see where you're coming from on those two, but I thought they would be worth the effort on a second playthrough the documentation makes it clear what changes you can make and IA in particular seems very configurable.

 

The path I launch the game from is

 

D:\Games\Dragon Age\bin_ship\daorigins.exe

 

It loads up Origin and then if my password is accepted it then loads Dragon Age Origins directly.

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