Installing DAO/Starting DAO

[Mereinid]

Hello all, I had kick of nostalgia today, something reminded me of Dragon Age Origins. Anyway, I wanted to come home and install and play. Well after looking through all of my Game App files I finally came across Origin and started it. That's what I purchased DAO through or at the very least once I bought the discs way back when I registered my key through them and then I could DL anytime.

1. I started downloading it.

2. I recalled while I was DL'ing it that I had modded it *way back when*

3. Nexus mods was my next stop. Great a lot of mods.

4. Immediately seen that there were multiple ways to install the mod as opposed to the way I have installed mods from the Nexus, ie NMM.

5. So I downloaded DAModder or something like that, while NMM was firing up also NMM said I had mods installed that it could no longer find, which was bullocks as I have never had DAO installed on this relatively new PC. So after pressing No, No, No, No, No, No, No, No, like 30 times it finally loaded with the familiar look of named mod folders down the left side.

6. I installed 4 mods with NMM and just ignored the DAmodder as the chat/forum on the mods page was error after error after error and some guy posting a ling to yet another different kind of DAO modder. Who knew that DAO was so versatile that it supported multiple installation capabilities.

7. Okay, I fired up DAO. Splash screen with the red dragon and blood..good sign. Music..good good...Then the smokey selection screen pops up and says that I have entered invalid credentials and gives me the OK button. However I have no mouse cursor.

8. I CTRL/ALT out, my PC screens flash for about 30 seconds and I have to use Task Manager to end the game.

9. I restart it, same thing no cursor and Tab doesnt work to cycle through the options. I use Task manger again to end the game.

10. I open the game directory and run DAConfig. I set the game away from my 4k resolution back to 1080p and I still get no cursor.

11. No when I exited Origins and started it back up, it's giving me an error that I am trying to run Origins in compatibility mode, I click OK and it starts up fine and immediately starts verifying game files and now has been trying to download a 2GB patch for the past hour. and its been stuck at 66% for the past 30 mins of that hour.

12. I have restarted Origin twice more, still getting the ERROR, you are trying to start Origin in Compatibility Mode, BULLOCKS! I am not, it launches, verifies game files. It doesn't verifry any of the 6 other games I have installed on Origin. I start the game and it asks me to download this patch. I goes right back to 66% immediately and stops.

 

I really have no idea if the game will even run on Windows 10. Last time I played it Windows 7 had just launched, I think, or maybe 7 had been out a while...

If anyone here still plays the game or is if this forum is still active can someone baby step walk me through what I need to do. I would love to mod the game. I am fairly adept at modding games and have no problem following complicated procedures, MY Skyrim and Skyrim Enhanced Editions and Fallout 3/4, Oblivion games are modded to hell and back.

 

Thank you all for your time, I'll check back to morrow sometime, its late now.

 

Regards,

Mereinid

[theskymoves]

Is your issue with 'Origin' (the EA digital distribution service) or 'Origins' (short for Dragon Age: Origins)?

 

If the former, you are likely to get better troubleshooting advice at EA Answers HQ.

 

If the issue is with the game proper, then:

 

What version/configuration of DAO is involved? (Ultimate Edition, base game only, DAO + Awakening expansion, etc...)

 

Did you run the unmodded game at least once, to confirm that the new install was working properly?

 

What mods did you install? If they are resource intensive (like texture overhauls or something like Improved Atmosphere), you may need to patch the game's executable to use more than 2 GB of memory. (And doing so is good practice, even for vanilla DAO.)

 

Lots of people run DAO under Windows 10, though I'm not one of them (proud Windows 7 peasant here), though it may require changing the compatibility mode (I use WinXP SP 3 mode, YMMV).

 

And there are at least four utilities that can be used to install DAzip mods:

 

daupdater > the Bioware native installer, installs DAzip archives only
Nexus Mod Manager > never used it personally, but I believe it can install both DAzips and MANUAL override mods, as long as they are package in a certain way - no mixed archives (either override or DAzip in the package but not both), no either/or files (two optional textures for the same thing packaged together, etc)
DAModder > can be used to install DAzips and MANUAL override mods. I only used this very very briefly back in the day, until I discovered it did not cleanly uninstall some DAzips

DAO-ModManager > installs DAzips and proprietary .override packages; can also be used to create custom override packages.

 

And of course manual overrides can be installed/uninstalled without any additional software, via copy/paste.

 

Finally, some DAO modding basics are here (explanation of file types, my preferred mod management utilities, some best practices nonsense), with links to a few 'tutorial' type pages at the very end.

[Mereinid]

Hello TSM, thank you for taking the time to reply back to me.

I actually have two issues, the, I guess, largest one being that I cannot access the game to play anything as the game does start just fine but my cursor is not there to interact with anything. I have to use task manager every time. The Origin issue I will take care of with them through their side.

Okay, Origin app is absolutely horrible. I uninstalled it and am going to purchases the Steam edition..