Dragon Age Inquisition Install Mods Manually

[Finley Chopin]

ThisGuide should cover the basic questions of how to get a Mod to work with your Vanilla Dragon Age game, how to update it and how to uninstall it propper. Its quite basic information, but everyone has to start somewhere, thats what this Guide is for. Read it and maybe you learn something new even if you think you know how to do that already =)

Normally every Mod should have a Readme or Information posted how to make it work with your Game, but some dont, and when you are new to this kind of thing then you might not know what to do with those files you can download here. I can only cover the things i know, and i am myself no modder (yet), but i hope the information i can give may be enough to get you going if you have no clue on where to start =)

All the locations i give you are for a Windows XP Operating System, becouse thats what i have. But the paths should not differ very much if you are using Vista or Win7.All screenshots show german language couse thats what i have, but i hope that dosent matter.

Its good to work with a User Account on your Windows OS that has Administrator rights and to set all files and folders to visible on your PC if you are dealing with mods, so you dont overlook any files or run into access problems. Use google or ask in the Forum if you really have trouble with this things.

And lastly some mods need further tweaking or are dependent on other mods to work, thats nothing that can be covered in this general FAQ sadly, so ask then the Mod-Author via Private Message or in the comments of the mod you have trouble with. If nothing helps ask in the Forums here, most often some other Member will help you.

Now that DAModder is available i would recommend anyone to use that great tool to manage the Mods for Dragon Age, instead of installing them with daupdater or manually. See more Info to that in section 3 of the Guide.

Status August 2010: Because my Focus changed from Dragon Age to other things, this Guide wont be updated any more. I am not sure if all Information is still accurate after that much time. Please take it as it is, and excuse eventual inacuracies.

- There are the official Addons/Downloads (like Wardens Keep, ect.). Those are not covered in this Guide, looking up information for them in the offical Forums should help you if you have trouble with them. Bioware Social Network

Some Mods you can download have the extension ".dazip", they are basically .zip files that contain the files and settings for a mod that someone has created with the Dragon Age Toolset. As far as i know these Files are the preferended way from Biowares point of View of how to get a Mod installed into their Game.

You could use the daupdater.exe to install these files. This updater is located where you installed the actual game in the bin_ship subfolder.The path is normally: "C:\Programs\Dragon Age\bin_ship\daupdater.exe"If you installed to another drive or location you can find it there in the "\Dragon Age\bin_ship" folder.

When you have done that you see the .dazip file in the list, (you could add more than one file and install them all one after the other) now select it by clicking on it and press the "install selected" button.

Now the daupdater processes the file and after a short while you should see something like in the next picture. Dont get irritated by the loading bar thats not fully filled, when it says installed then its done.

You can check the sucessfull installation when you click on the log tab as you see in the next picture, at the end of the log it says that it succeeded. (or that the Installation was chancelled because there was an Error, normally with a fault message/mention of the file that caused it) Basically the daupdater is like a enchanced unzipper, it unpacks the contents of the .dazip-file into the correct location so it can be used by the game. You could do it manually too if the daupdater.exe is not working for you, but its alittle complicated. (normally the daupdater should only fail if your Game-Installation or your .dazip-File has a problem)

This location (on winXP) is normally a new folder in the"C:\Documents and Settings\YOURNAME\My Documents\BioWare\Dragon Age\AddIns"-folder,the path differs alittle on win7 and vista but its allways "...\BioWare\Dragon Age\AddIns", i am sure you will find it.Additionally most .dazip files also put files into "...\BioWare\Dragon Age\packages\core\data" and use the "Manifest.xml"-file to put information in the "AddIns.xml"-file both located in "...\BioWare\Dragon Age\Settings"

The reason i tell you this is, unless you use the DAModder, you cant uninstall this files automatically, and these are the places where you can find what you installed, so you can delete it later manually if you are not happy with what you installed. More to that at the Uninstall Section.

But back to the installation, after you installed the .dazip file you wanted to install you can close the daupdater and start your Dragon Age game. Then click on "Download Content" (or whatever it is in your language)

In the window that popped up select the upper bar "installed content/mods", now you should have a new entry below all official content that is normally green colored (not in the below pic) to show you that its new. When you select it it should give you additional info to what it is in the right info aerea. Make sure its enabled and activated by checking the box right next to the entry in the list, it should say "Activated" below the modentry.

Basically your mod should now be ready for play, its installed and activated now.Remember that some mods require additional steps or are dependent to other mods. Allways refer to the readme file or additional information that should be aviable at the mod-site.

Normally you just install the new version over the older one in the same manner you installed the mod the first time.But refer also to the mod readme, if aviable, sometimes additional steps have to be taken depending on the specific mod.

According to feedback the daupdater not allways succeds in updating a mod that was allready installed to the new version.You can of course install every dazip-mod twice to be sure all previous data is removed/overwritten. In most cases that should be enough to get it updated.

There is another procedure to be sure your Mod gets propper updated, but you should only use it if the mod you want to update is not tied to any Quests or Single Player Scrips,like for example you should be able to use it for a texture or color change mod but not for a mod that adds a new quest line to the game,if you are not sure ask the mod author or dont use this method. Use it at your own risk!

First reload the mod you want to update with the daupdater.exe, after it has finished start your Game and UNCHECK it in Downloadable Content,then Force Load a game without it (Force loading means to load a game when you uninstalled a Mod that was installed and is now not aviable any more).After force loading through the warnings make a new savegame, then exit to the menue and recheck the updated mod in the Downloadable Content List.When you now load the new save game you have created, the mod should be propper in effect.

Again, do this at your own risk and ask the Mod Author how to update if you are unsure if the mod can be updated this way.Refer to the Force Loading Section further down this Article for more Information about it.

If you ever want to Uninstall a mod that you installed with a .dazip-file, first make sure you have a clean and propper savegame, then go to the mod-list in the game and deactivate the mod you want to get rid of by unchecking the box next to the name of the mod, it should say deactivated under it.Now its deactivated but not uninstalled. For most times this should be fine and all you need to do.

- for the first you need to have the Toolset installed and need to be at least basically familiar with it (see A.),- the second way is a manual delete with the edit of important game files that can be dangerous if you mess it up (see B.).

For this first method you need to have the Toolset installed and working ( you can get the Toolset here ), and need basic understanding with it, dont try it if you dont know what youre doing, the Toolset is a mighty tool and you can cause all kinds of harm to your game if you mess things up, be warned!

- Then you navigate down to the string entry 'SAVEPROFILE_ADDIN_LIST' stringlist and find the entry that corresponds with the name of mod file in your AddIns folder that you want to uninstall. It should be listed last in the stringlist once you have expanded it. Just left click on the entry and hit the Del key (or right click for the context menu) and save the file via the menu. The toolset will automatically create a backup file that will be located in the same folder as the saved one.

This should be a relative safe and working way to uninstall the mods that get installed via .dazip file, but be advised that i havent tested this way yet, if you want to confirm this method is reliable and working, or if you want to add something then please post in the comments to this article and let me know!

- Third but most complicated, find your "...\BioWare\Dragon Age\Settings"-folder and locate your "Manifest.xml" and "AddIns.xml" files. Save them to a secure location in case you mess something up!

- You can open both of this files with a basic Editor like Notepad, or better with an .xml Editor that should come with your Operating Sytem or IE Browser. There you have to delete any information that belongs to the mod you want to uninstall. Most times only the Addins.xml contains Data for mods you installed, the Manifest.xml contains data for official DLC. Close them after the edit and save them again.

BE REALLY CAREFULL WHEN EDITING "Manifest.xml" and "AddIns.xml", they contain also information of your bought DLC, like Wardens Keep and all that, if you delete the wrong lines you can damage your DLC!

If you load a savegame after you deactivated or uninstalled a mod that was installed when you created the Savegame you have to "Force Load" it.Force loading means to load a game through the warnings that the game gives you, about the content that isnt aviable any more.

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