Final dialogue with companions won't trigger

[Katarsi]

I was very careful with installing a bunch of mods into my Dragon Age Origins (and Awakening), and now it seems that I had messed up something.

To the point: as the title says, the final dialogue with companions won't trigger - the one after Riordan's speech and choosing the "fantastic four" for the clash with the Archdemon. It did before, but I may have installed some mods in the meantime... It would be grand if I remembered which ones, though. However, I do remember that I had these when the dialogue worked:

• Alistair's Kiss
• Dahlia's First Night
• Dragon Age Redesigned (Aesthetics, for Awakening as well)
• Gatekisses
• Mild sexscenes
• Rendevous at the tavern
• ZDF and IRS, with compatibility script
• ZRS, with ZevRing (this is now uninstalled)
• No Helmet Hack
• Alistair Epilogue - The Royal Wedding
• Dahlialynn's Sleep Until Dawn
• Alistair's Nightmare
• Morrigan Restoration Patch

Now, I can't quite remember if I also had these - which I do have now:

• Extra Dog slot
• Qunari Update
• Alistair's Dark Ritual

 

Also, I may have tampered with the previous mods because stuff was bugged. As I said, I can't quite remember because it's been over a year since I played DAO the last time and got to this part - the one which won't work.

Please, help. I really, really like this dialogue with all the companions before the final clash, and I was devastated when I found out that it was missing.

 

I would greatly appreciate any help and suggestions. Also, do ask if I missed something in my explanation of the problem and I'll do my best to specify. Thanks!

[ripple]

One good thing about modding DAO is that it is relatively easy to troubleshoot mod conflicts compared to many other games. Try moving mods out of your override folder (I keep override mods in their own respective subfolders for organizational purposes, which makes this easy), loading from a save prior to entering the area of the issue you encountered, to test and see which mods might be implicated. The most efficient way to do this is to divide your mod into two groups, move group 1 out, test, then swap group 1 into the override and move group 2 out if nothing changed. Further divide the trouble group, and so on and so on, until you can narrow down the culprit.

Edited January 14, 2016 by ripple

[Katarsi]

Thank you for the response :)

 

However, I've already tried that. I keep my mods in their respective folders as well, precisely so this kind of problem wouldn't happen. But the most complicated part is that most of my mods are in .dazip format and they can be installed and removed only by DAupdater or DAModder.

The first thing that I had tried to remove was Qunari Update. Didn't go well. Even though I had it uninstalled and manually removed some other files as it should be done, nothing changed...except Sten was persistently bald.

The next were Alistair's Dark Ritual and Extra Dog slot. Also nothing.

I guess I should try further and uninstall the Wedding and similar stuff... Though the process kills the overall mood severely. I was hoping that someone who is more proficient in modding would point out the exact mods which could create the conflict. Ah well, I just hope I won't mess up more than I already have :)

[theskymoves]

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Edited January 14, 2016 by theskymoves

[sapphim]

Looks to me like it's probably a party_events issue (gate kisses edits it too) but I'm not sure what exactly about a conflict there would stop the dialogue from playing entirely. Also, I think ZDF and MRP use identical versions of party_events for mutual compatibility.

 

Conflicts with dazips can be resolved by using the toolset or pygff to extract the files from the erfs in addins (or packages\core\data depending) and just keeping the loose files (though I'd keep a backup of the erf somewhere). Then you can remove problem files. Or if the problem is that a file is being overridden you can just extract that and copy it into packages\core\override manually.

Edited January 14, 2016 by starrarte

[Katarsi]

.

...Does this mean that I'm a lost cause? :confused:

 

starrarte, I had tried that as well. I don't have a toolset, and I don't know what that pygff thingie is though, but I went to my AddIns and data folders and tried removing stuff manually, then putting them back when I realized that they weren't the issue.

So far, I had uninstalled Extra Dog slot, MRP and ZDF. Gatekisses shouldn't conflict with anything now. Still, the problem persists. Would returning to a further point in the game, e.g. right after the Landsmeet (that's my furthest save), and then making a new save, solve things?

[sapphim]

Have you tried uninstalling Gate kisses yet? That's probably the most likely cause of the issue.

 

I wouldn't try returning to a save before the Landsmeet but I WOULD make sure you're returning to a save in Redcliffe before you return to Denerim for the fight. It sounds like possibly there's an event that's not firing properly, although I'd assume if that were the case that uninstalling Extra Dog Slot would have fixed it.

 

Hunting down mod conflicts is a pain. Have you tried disabling/removing EVERY mod you have installed (you can just drag /addins and /packages to your desktop temporarily rather than fussing with the addins themselves) and trying one more time to make sure it will play vanilla? I've wasted a lot of time troubleshooting issues I thought were caused by mods only to discover my game install had gotten iffy (which in my case was fixed by reinstalling the latest patch).

Edited January 15, 2016 by starrarte

[Katarsi]

I hope I won't have to reinstall the patch, too much hassle.

I had uninstalled all conflicting mods, including Gatekisses, and since I was thoroughly irritated by this whole outcome, I had deleted ALL saves. I had cleaned out the entire override folder, moving the necessary files (like morphs, weapons, hairs etc.) so I wouldn't lose them, and then I had uninstalled problematic dazips. While doing so, I had managed to identify the respective files in AddIns and data folders.

I'll start the whole thing from the beginning, but first I'll install the required mods carefully. I won't install IRS and MRP together, but I will install ZDF with one of those, minding the overlapping files. And I will have to squeeze Gatekisses somewhere in there, though. I really love that mod. I noticed that in that mod's description it's highlighted that Gatekisses should be installed before installing ZDF, so I guess the order should be like this:

Gatekisses--> ZDF--> IRS

When I decide to choose Morrigan or Zevran as romance options, I'll uninstall IRS beforehand and then install MRP or ZRS, adjusting them to Gatekisses and ZDF.

 

I'm wondering if I should install Extra Dog slot again. Is it possible that it had contributed to the conflict?

 

Edit:

Also, I had tried returning to the save at Redcliffe after the Landsmeet. The dog was in his extra slot even though I had uninstalled the mod, which was enough of an indication that the game was irreversibly corrupt. Deleting Gatekisses also didn't help.

Edited January 15, 2016 by Katarsi

[mcgoy]

Any mods in the Addins folder COULD have been disabled through the console rather than deleting them manually.

 

In DAO, the order of installation doesn't matter. You still have to keep only one version of each file in the packages/core/override folder.

 

You have multiple mods that override Core resources. Even if that override is for bug fix, it is still an override. Any mods that override the same Core resources are going to have a conflict.

[Katarsi]

Any mods in the Addins folder COULD have been disabled through the console rather than deleting them manually.

 

Some of them need to be removed manually. For instance, ZevRing and Qunari Update; even when I uninstall dazips, their files remain in AddIns and data folders.