Do I "HAVE" to use a mod manager of sorts?

[ninjafish]

I tried installing DA:O Mod Manager, however whenever I ran it I got 4-5 errors with the .dazip files and I couldn't get it to install anything... seemed useless and broken to me. I then installed a bunch of mods and when I went to make a new game, I wasn't able to. This could of been from a bad install in the first place, but can basically all mods be installed manually if they aren't dazip files?

[Thandal]

The only type of mod that requires a specific manager is one packaged as a ".override". DAO-Modmanager (DAMM) is the only program that can handle those.

 

Full Disclosure: I've been using DAMM for over a year now, and love it. Besides allowing me to make use of several ".override" mods, I find that the control it provides over ".dazips" ("installed and active", vs. "installed", vs. "available for installation") is excellent.

 

But all ".dazip" files can be installed using the game's built-in "DAUpdater.exe", and other types of mods are pretty much just" "Put in the player's '\override' folder" anyway...

[ninjafish]

The only type of mod that requires a specific manager is one packaged as a ".override". DAO-Modmanager (DAMM) is the only program that can handle those.

 

Full Disclosure: I've been using DAMM for over a year now, and love it. Besides allowing me to make use of several ".override" mods, I find that the control it provides over ".dazips" ("installed and active", vs. "installed", vs. "available for installation") is excellent.

 

But all ".dazip" files can be installed using the game's built-in "DAUpdater.exe", and other types of mods are pretty much just" "Put in the player's '\override' folder" anyway...

 

Is there any specific way to install DAMM other that extracting it from the .rar file? I mean, I tried moving it around, tried making it work several ways and each time I got nothing from it. Just errors and it didn't seem to want to work properly.

[Thandal]

DAMM doesn't really "install", in the sense that a Windows program is "installed". It is simply extracted as a stand-alone executable program and placed in whatever folder you want. You can then "point" it to the various paths for the mod and program files using the "Options" tab, (on the far-right of the tabs on the main screen.)

 

I happen to use the following folder structure, (but not because one has to, but only because it helps me remember where I need to/have put stuff. :laugh: ):

 

"C:\[user's documents]\BioWare\Dragon Age\packages\core\override"

(location where I've "placed" the DAMM program itself)

 

"C:\[user's documents]\BioWare\Dragon Age\packages\core\override\mods\dazip"

(location where I've configured DAMM to look for ".dazip" files)

 

"C:\[user's documents]\BioWare\Dragon Age\packages\core\override\mods\override"

(location where I've configured DAMM to look for ".override" files)

 

NOTE: There is an essentially empty "\mod" folder level between the main "\override" one and the two that DAMM uses. Not sure why I did it this way, and probably could raise those two a level. But this way it's clear (to me) by looking at the path that whatever's there is different from the other mods that aren't managed by DAMM.

 

Hope that helps! :thumbsup:

[DarkeWolf]

have you got the latest version of MS .net?

do you have a retail version of the game, steam version, or Ultimate Edition version (those will require you to configure DAMM to the correct folder locations)

and which OS are you using? DAMM does NOT like Win7 64 bit.

[Thandal]

and which OS are you using? DAMM does NOT like Win7 64 bit.

Not true for me. DAMM has worked flawlessly on my Win7/64-bit since I first installed it.

 

But as noted earlier, I did have to point the initial version (which has since been updated by the author) to the correct path using the "Options" tab. The default it wanted to use for the game files was under "\Program Files", rather than "\Program Files (x86)". The more recent version I installed didn't even need the correction. :thumbsup: