Does anyone know/like to create Dragon Age characters/save files?

[JohngPR]

This is what happens when you are a noob to PC gaming. :(

 

Well I bought Dragon Age Origins when it came out last year and played it for a few months and was about 70 hours in. I loved the game so much, I did a lot of the side quests.

 

Well I was part of the Windows 7 Beta and when the time came to take the beta off of my computer, I had no idea that my Dragon Age saves were in the My document folder so my save files were erased! To be completely honest, it broke my spirit and I haven't played the game since. My Social Bioware account still shows all of the things I chose with my character Ian. I'm really taking a stab in the dark here but does anyone know how to create game saves? With Dragon Age II coming out next year, I know I'm going to want to play through the first one but I don't think I can put as much effort as I did the first time around.

 

If anyone can help please let me know! Much appreciated.

[Thandal]

Welcome, JohngPR; Sorry your first post here can't get the response you were hoping for.

 

While (if you allowed it) the BioWare servers have a record of your PC's acheivements and some other info ABOUT them, the character(s) only "existed" inside the ".das" savedgame files on your local HDD (or any backups you may have made.)

 

With the Toolset (or the right utility program, e.g. DAFR) one can export the ".mor" from the ".das" and have a copy of a PC's face to use elsewhere, but that's it.

 

At this point, your PC is resting peacefully in the great bit-bucket in the sky... :sad:

[DarkeWolf]

Hiyas Johng- Also let me welcome you to the nexus as well :) Also, unfortunately, I have to give you bad news as well. :(

As Thandal mentioned, those save files are only stored locally on your hard drive. If they have been erased when you removed the operating system, they are gone unless you had a backup copy.

 

Now however, you can attempt to find and install a recovery software that can attempt to locate and restore lost files. Its a slim chance that it may be able to recover the save games tho. And many of the freeware or shareware version have some pretty steep limitations.

Its been a very long time since I tried looking for those, but "disk recovery software" in google search would be a good start.

 

Good luck, and happy gaming!

-DW

[JohngPR]

Thanks for the advice guys, much apprecited.

 

With that said, is there anyway to change the apperance and gender of an already made character? I actually found a save that is close to mine but the character looks very different.

[DarkeWolf]

Heyas Johng :)

There is, but it will require the dragonage toolset, in order to edit the savegame's gender information.

you can find the toolset by using google, yahoo, bing, whichever you prefer, and searching for bioware dragon age toolset and that should bring up a link to the download site from bioware. or fileplanet dragon age toolset if you would prefer to download it from fileplanet (tho that requires signing up for a free membership with them).

 

Now sometimes the toolset doesn't want to install correctly for some users. So just downloading it doesnt mean that it will always work for you. There's about 20% of people that can't get it to work. :(

And, it won't open large save files. Anything around 1 megabyte in size makes it crash :(

 

You will also need a morph/face file for the race and gender of the character that you are wanting to use. You can either download one ( a preset face morph will NOT work. It has to be a .mor file, not a .mop file). Or create one in the character creator. IF you make one in the character creator, you will need a tool called the Face Replacer, in order to extract the morph file- http://www.dragonagenexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=428

I recommend renaming the file to something easy for you to remember like facetouse.mor or something like that, and then drop it in your override folder.

documents/bioware/dragon age/packages/core/override

 

What you'd want to do once/if you get the toolset running, is go to FILE->Open then direct it to where you have the savegame. it should be in documents/bioware/dragon age/characters/saves

there will be a bunch of folders in there most likely. Some of them saying autosave # and some of them saying Slot_# The higher the slot # it is, a later save it will be. So if there is 1-10, 10 will be the most recent save. However, the higher the number (most recent) it is, the larger the file will also be.

 

Now find the folder of the one you want to edit, and inside you will find "savegamename" .das (NOT .das.met that one won't work) and double click (x2c) on it. Give the Toolset (TS) a minute to load it. It may say "no items to read" but it will eventually open all the file, or crash if the file is too big.

 

Once you have it open, you'll see a line that reads + SAVEGAME_PLAYERCHAR. click on the + next to it, to expand it's listing.

 

Right below that, you will now see SAVEGAME_PLAYERCHAR_CHAR. Click on the + next to that.

 

Scroll down to where you see a line that reads + SAVEGAME_APPEARANCE and click the + next to it.

 

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v699/DarkeWolf/Untitled-01.jpg

 

I've color coded the lines that you need to edit here.

 

SAVEGAME_APPEARANCE_TYPE

SAVEGAME_APPEARANCE_ORIGINAL_TYPE Both of these are the character's RACE. Both must MATCH/Be the SAME.

The races are as follows-

ELF = 2

DWARF = 3

HUMAN = 15

IF YOU ARE NOT CHANGING THE RACE YOU CAN IGNORE THIS :)

 

SAVEGAME_APPEARANCE_GENDER This line tells the game which sex your character is. 1=Male 2=Female

If the character is female (2) and you are changing it to male (1) use your mouse to click the line right where it says 2 and type in the number 1 to replace the 2.

 

SAVEGAME_APPEARANCE_MORPH This one is VERY IMPORTANT. It tells the name of the file to use for your character's face. So what you will need to do is copy the filename of the morph that you are wanting to use, and find the empty space at the end of that line, next to the vertical scroll bar. It will look empty, but the name is actually just invisible.

Now type in the name of the file that you are using for your morph. Such as facetouse.mor in the space that looks empty.

 

Now go up to the file menu and click FILE->SAVE

 

And that should do it :)

 

I know that reads like a lot to do. But honestly... just getting the TS to work is about the only real hard part about it. :thumbsup:

Edited December 29, 2010 by DarkeWolf