Missing dialogues in DLCs [ Edited ]

[AstraeaNevermore]

Hi, I'm having some troubles with the DLCs I installed for Dragon Age 2. A couple of days ago I got Mark of The Assassin, Legacy and The Exiled Prince from Origin (which is also where I downloaded Dragon Age 2 from). The installation went fine, I could see the mementos in my house and everything, and, as for The Exiled Prince, I could talk to Sebastian with no troubles, at least until he and Hawke were in the Chantry. Troubles started as soon as I started the quest "Repentance": once I got into the Harimann's Estate, dialogues went missing. I could still hear party banters and combat dialogue, but all the other characters appearing inside the house were mute (as well as Sebastian's and Hawke's dialogues). I could still see subtitles and choose dialogue options, but... no voices, no speaking animations, nothing. Music and ambient sounds were just fine.

I thought it was just a problem with that particular quest, but just to be sure, I decided to try out Legacy as well, just to see if there were other similar problems. Things turned out to be even worse in that DLC: again, I could enter the new locations, see subtitles, choose dialogue options... but dialogues were missing. This time, there weren't even party banters. Haven't tried Mark of The Assassin yet.

I'm from Italy, so I'm playing an Italian version of the game (English audio/Italian subtitles). The rest of the game works just fine, no audio problems or anything similar.

Here are my system specs:

OS: Windows 7 Home Premium 64 bit (6.1, build 7601)

Producer: Hewlett-Packard

Product model: h9-1200el

BIOS: Ver: FOR_714.rom vFOR7.14

Processor: Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-3770K CPU @3.50GHz (8 CPUs), -3.5GHz

Memory: 12288MB RAM

HD: 2 TB

DirectX: DirectX 11

Graphics Card: AMD Radeon HD 7770 Series - updated to the most recent driver

Chip: AMD Radeon Graphics Processor (0x683D)

Audio: IDT High Definition Audio - Integrated - last updated March 30th 2012

I should also point out that when I installed the DLCs first I had some mods installed: no intro, some skins, hairs and a few additional face presets. I thought I may have corrupted something for not removing the mods first, but the problem persisted even after I uninstalled the game (from Origins) and re-installed it without mods. I also tried the various fixes suggested around (force Stereo Audio, check for Voice Over options in the DragonAge.ini file -which are enabled). No result. Tried a game repair... and again, no result. Contacted a Game Advisor in live chat here at the EA site, and he suggested me to write about my issue here.

So... is there any solution to the problem? As far as I could see, usually Dragon Age 2 audio problems affect the whole game, not just some parts of it, so I couldn't really find anything more to fix the whole thing. It's not that the game is completely unplayable as it is right now, but still... dialogues are one of my favourite things in Dragon Age, and I find it kinda sad to play the DLCs on silent mode D:

Also, not sure if this is a problem, but I thought I might point it out as well: while checking the talktables files inside my Dragon Age II/addins/da2_prc_drk/core/data/talktables and /da2_prc_eye/core/data/talktables (which I think are the files for Legacy and Mark of The Assassins), I found out that I seem to have three files:

1. da2_prc_drk_c_it-it.tlk

2: da2_prc_drk_c_it-it_f.tlk

3. da2_prc_drk_c_ja-jp.tlk

...which I think means I got some files for a japanese version? The Exiled Prince folder (da2_prc_seb) seem to contain only the it-it files inside the talktables folder, instead.

I'll admit, I'm not too sure if this means anything (and I hope my explanation wasn't too confusing!), but I thought I'd mention it anyway.

[MsPotatino · Accepted solution]

Hey, @AstraeaNevermore!

I had the exact same problem and almost went mad trying to solve it. However, I found a solution! You probably don't care anymore, but maybe it'll help players in the future?! I don't know. 

Anyway, since the DLC(s) autorun claims Dragon Age II is not installed (and we both know it is), you'll have to open the DLC(s) file with 7-zip. You'll see 3 different folders (ignore the $TEMP one if you come across it). First, create a new folder called plugins in your Dragon Age II directory (usually Origin Games<Dragon Age II) and extract the content of $PLUGINSDIR in it. You will only have to do this once.

Then open $[34] and click on addins. You should be able to check which DLC it is now (the folder is usually called da2_prc_xxx). Now go to Origin Games<Dragon Age II<addins and click on the proper folder. For example, if it's Legacy go to Origin Games<Dragon Age II<addins<da2_prc_drk. Then extract the content of $[34] AND $_OUTDIR in it. 

Tada! Problem fixed :womanwink:

Try it and let me know if it worked for you as well!

NOTE: I used xxx, but that's just to compile all 3 letter endings of the individual DLC(s) without having to write them all down!

[ThandalNLyman]

You have both of the Italian, and one of the two Japanese language files. 

Another player with a similar problem solved it by downloading the Black Emporium and other DLC from their BioWare Player Entitlements page, rather then through EA/Origin.

Just save the files to your rig and run the executables right over your current install.  Doesn't touch saves or mods. 

[AstraeaNevermore]

Hi and thanks for the answer! :D Soooo... I got the DLCs from the page you linked, but I have yet another problem: apparently, the DLCs downloaded from that page do not recognize that I have Dragon Age 2 installed on my computer. Whenever I click on the executables, I get the message "Dragon Age 2 is not installed on your pc. Please install it and retry" (or something along that lines) :/ I read somewhere that it's because Origin installs Dragon Age 2 in a different folder than the disc version, so the DLC files for the manual installation do not recognize it. How to make it work? D:

[ThandalNLyman]

Something else is going on here.  I have successfully installed both the retail disc and the EA/Origin versions.

And similarly installed the DLC for both installs, under both Win7 and Win8.

So what version?  What install mechanism?  (And please don't say Steam. mileytongue: )

[AstraeaNevermore]

I got the game from Origin and my version is 1.04. The only possibly "wrong" thing I can think of is that I installed the game in my C:/Programs (x86)/EA GAMES folder, instead of the default Origin Games one or a newly created Dragon Age 2 folder, so that could be why the DLC installers do not recognize my game :/

[ThandalNLyman]

Yes, that could be the reason the stand-alone DLC isn't able to find a valid install.

I would suggest a complete un-/re-installl using EA/Origin and the default location.

I realize that if your internet usage is metered that may not be a viable option...

[AstraeaNevermore]

Soooooooooooo... I uninstalled the game and tried again. Twice, actually. First time, I used the default Origin folder (Origin Games) and tried to manually install the DLCs I got from the Bioware site. No luck, still says my game is not installed. Uninstalled again, re-downloaded, re-installed, this time in C:/Programs (x 86)/BioWare and tried again to manually install the DLCs. Same result, it keeps saying my game is not installed and thus I can't manually install the DLCs.

I gave up and decided to put back the DLC files with missing dialogues I got from Origin the first time mileyindifferent: Not my favourite solution, but honestly, after spending the last three days redownloading the game 3 times, reinstalling and still seeing no change, I can't think of anything else. The only other possible "fixes" I've seen around to make the manual DLC installers to work is to mess with regedit and change the installation path, but honestly I don't feel like doing that. Still, thanks for your kindness and for trying your best to help me

Edit: to make it even worse, after the last re-installation from Origin, even the Black Emporium (which used to work first) turned silent. Luckily, I had a backup of the file, so I could at least fix that by moving the old downloaded files into the addins folder. Looking at the last Black Emporium folder downloaded from Origin, I could see that it missed several files (47 files, 14 folders, versus the 61 files & 23 folders of the working version). I guess that is the same issue I'm having with the other DLCs: either Origin didn't download some files, or it downloaded the wrong ones.

[MsPotatino · Accepted solution]

Hey, @AstraeaNevermore!

I had the exact same problem and almost went mad trying to solve it. However, I found a solution! You probably don't care anymore, but maybe it'll help players in the future?! I don't know. 

Anyway, since the DLC(s) autorun claims Dragon Age II is not installed (and we both know it is), you'll have to open the DLC(s) file with 7-zip. You'll see 3 different folders (ignore the $TEMP one if you come across it). First, create a new folder called plugins in your Dragon Age II directory (usually Origin Games<Dragon Age II) and extract the content of $PLUGINSDIR in it. You will only have to do this once.

Then open $[34] and click on addins. You should be able to check which DLC it is now (the folder is usually called da2_prc_xxx). Now go to Origin Games<Dragon Age II<addins and click on the proper folder. For example, if it's Legacy go to Origin Games<Dragon Age II<addins<da2_prc_drk. Then extract the content of $[34] AND $_OUTDIR in it. 

Tada! Problem fixed :womanwink:

Try it and let me know if it worked for you as well!

NOTE: I used xxx, but that's just to compile all 3 letter endings of the individual DLC(s) without having to write them all down!

[Zarktos]

First of all sorry for my english, im spanish and im doing my best :P , and second..  MANY THANKS !!! FOR ALL OF YOU, and yess Lyvine your solution works great !!, i writed the same question days before but no one answered... and you finaly solved my problem with my dlc voices and the "dragon age 2 is not installed " with the dlc exe , i always installed all in the default origin folder.. and always get the same problem

but now i first time enjoy my dlc voices in dragon age 2 :D many thx seriously

[Nero-cavaliere]

Edit: Solved! Follwing your steps i totally solved the problem! Thank you very much! :D