Best method to mod DAO

[Alonshowman]

I've heard several times that Nexus mod manager doesn't work well with Dragon Age: Origins. Is that true? If so, what kind of problems does it have? And what's the best method to install mods in this game? Manual, another mod manager...?

[Pasquale1223]

Personally, I've never used any sort of mod manager for DAO. Dazips are easily installed with the daupdater that comes with the game, and installing/uninstalling most other mods is a simple matter of copying/deleting the files into/from your override directory. There are a few that require a bit more to install or uninstall, but the mod authors generally provide pretty good instructions either on the mod page or in the documentation that comes with the mod. Where that info is unclear, one can usually find more detail under the forum or posts tab.

 

One note about daupdater - it generally takes only a few seconds to do its work, though it appears that it is still working.

[balmz]

use damodder or daomanger

[theskymoves]

There are three types of mods for DAO. Each type has a different install/uninstall procedure.

 

• Manual override mods - the ones that you just unzip and move into the game's override folder - don't require any mod manager at all. Uninstalling them is as simple as deleting or removing the files from the override folder, though one of the two popular mod managers for the game (DAModder) can handle overrides in general. (IIRC, it cannot parse archives that are packaged using RAR compression.)

• DAzip mods can be installed with the daupdater.exe utility packaged with the game, or with a third party mod manager like DAO-ModManager or DAModder. There is no 'automated', easy way to uninstall DAzip mods without a mod manager, daupdater doesn't have that capability, and mod have to be uninstalled manually by removing files from several locations ([drive letter]:\Users\[username]\Documents\BioWare\Dragon Age\AddIns and [drive letter]:\Users\[username]\Documents\BioWare\Dragon Age\packages\core\data). Both DAO-ModManager and DAModder can be used to uninstall DAzip mods, with DAo-ModManager being the better of the two. (DAModder sometimes does not cleanly uninstall, leaving 'garbage' files behind that can cause issues.)
  
• .override packages are the third type of mod, and they can only be installed (and configured) using DAO-ModManager, as will be specified in the instructions provided by the mod creator. One example (and probably the most commonly encountered) is the nude body replacer NBaio.

Cosmetic mods are always manual overrides. If they are to be used for the player character in the Character Creator, they reguire the additional step of modifying the game's chargenmorphcfg.xml file to include the additional assets from the mod. The best way to do that (for most users) is to use the CharGenMorph Compiler utility.

 

Vortex (the current Nexus mod manager) is not appropriate for modding DAO, except perhaps for those manual override mods that do not require an installer. It should not be used to install DAzip mods, as it is known to replace the addins.xml file (which the game uses to identify what dazip mods and DLC have been installed) with an XML containing only the last DAzip that was installed.

 

And I cannot speak to the usefulness of the legacy Nexus Mod Manager (NMM).

 

My personal preference (arrived at after 10 years of modding the game and dealing with massive installs that include hundreds of mods) is to install DAzip mods with daupdater.exe, to manually install overrides, and to use DAO-ModManager to install .override packages and to uninstall (manage) my DAzip mods.

Edited December 4, 2020 by theskymoves

[Alonshowman]

Thank you for your very detailed explanation, theskymoves. I've reinstalled everything following your directions. Unfortunately I couldn't notice any difference between this installation and the Vortex installation. What was working with Vortex still works now, and what was not working with Vortex (described in this thread) still doesn't work.

 

Vortex (the current Nexus mod manager) is not appropriate for modding DAO, except perhaps for those manual override mods that do not require an installer. It should not be used to install DAzip mods, as it is known to replace the addins.xml file (which the game uses to identify what dazip mods and DLC have been installed) with an XML containing only the last DAzip that was installed.

I did notice this happening with Vortex, though. It wasn't a big deal for me because I could fix it by reinstalling the removed mods with daupdater, but it is quite inconvenient, for sure.