Lasivern: Secondly, with regards to the fight that breaks out in the party, was it *really* about getting to Nashkel in a timely manner,

Hickory: Data

javihyuga: Didn't Kagain and Edwin get in fights too? I am not sure about the fight, but I'm positive about them arguing and stuff.
May I ask where did you find that info? It sure looks interesting :)

javihyuga: being such a brittle touchy lass to most people who have given their sincere opinion is not, my good sir.

Lasivern: There are two, two-person groups of NPCs who want to get to Nashkel - both groups make it *very* clear that this is not only very important to them, but that it should be accomplished with some haste.

Now, one can certainly choose to ignore the expressly stated agendas of these people, but, obviously, this comes with consequences if you tarry too long. And there is little reason *to* tarry, since everything you pass by on the way to Nashkel will still be there once you have mollified your comrades.

Bottom line is, IMO, if you don't want to have to keep people with agendas happy, don't agree to fulfill their agenda in the first place. Such is the case with Minsc - he makes it abundantly clear that his agenda is rescuing Dynaheir. What do you think his reaction is going to be if the party doesn't attend to this *very* quickly?

Secondly, with regards to the fight that breaks out in the party, was it *really* about getting to Nashkel in a timely manner, or was it based on intra-party squabbles and Alignment differences? If you have Montaron and Xzar, both Evil in a party with Khalid and Jaheira who are on the side of Good [even though Jaheira is ostensibly Neutral], perhaps the conflict was over their incompatibility, rather than on a time issue. It may well have been time, I don't know what happened in your game, but the incompatible Alignment conflict is certainly a more common occurrence than one based simply on time. Truth be told, I've been playing this since it came out and I have *never* seen a case where actual combat breaks out over the length of time it takes to get to Nashkel, while the fight over one side being Evil, and the other being Good can easily break out [and especially the longer these two incompatible groups of NPCs remain in the same group.]

It would be interesting to know the Charisma of the party leader in your situation, since the lower the Charisma of the party leader, the lower the morale and happiness of the party members. Such that any scripted party conflicts will happen sooner, the lower the Charisma of the party leader. Making Imoen party leader, if her 16 Charisma is higher than the player character, can help tamp down in-party discord for a time - but it won't prevent conflicts completely. Nor will an even higher party leader Charisma - even a PC with an 18 Charisma will still see these events if they mix radically different Alignments in their parties, or fail to attend to NPC agendas for too long of a time.

In BG, the NPCs are not all faceless ciphers happy to fulfill the role of meat-sack for the protagonist - many of them *do* have feelings, opinions and agendas, and one has to take this into account when choosing who to adventure with. If you recruit, for example, both a LG Paladin into your party, and a NE Drow priestess, it should come as no surprise that their incompatible world views [as expressed by Alignment] can, and may well, lead to conflicts and problems...

HEF2011: ...and the underlined, bolded remark in this quote, I believe, answers the questions to this topic
---"Why is Baldur's Gate so highly rated?"
When playing a role-playing game such as this, a lot of novice gamers do not seem to be accustomed to free will choices and are hesitant to make these kinds of choices.
Are these gamers afraid to make mistakes?

HEF2011: Are these gamers conditioned to other RPGs that don't allow intricate mediation? ...or inter-party intervention of any kind?
I dunno... what I do know is that the gameplay in the Baldur's Gate series is functioning on a more 'evolved' level than those other role-playing games out there.

Hickory: This can never happen. Inter-party fights are explicitly scripted to happen on a percentage basis, and only between certain party members. The only party member that will go after any member of an opposite alignment, is Ajantis, who has a 10 percent chance of picking a fight with any party member of Evil alignment, but you can make him stand down. The only other party members that may come to blows are:

Dynaheir: 100% (50% with Minsc in the party) chance of picking a fight with Edwin (not the other way around)
Jaheira: 50% chance of picking a fight with Xzar
Khalid: 50% chance of picking a fight with Montaron OR Xzar

HEF2011: There isn't anymore meaningful conversation to be had here considering the original post has no clue or idea why Baldur's Gate is so highly rated, even when the questions put forth have been answered.

I believe it is fair to conclude that this thread is winding down.

Lasivern: Taking it as a given that a newcomer to the game complaining about a fight breaking out in his party before they get to Nashkel has both "teams" in their party, i.e. both Xzar/Montaron *and* Khalid/Jaheira, it would then be quite possible for a fight to break out, rather than "This can never happen."

I would assume that as a newbie, the OP has *not* learned or utilized any of the well-worn tricks for recruiting and keeping only a single member of a paired "team". Thus, in the party we can safely assume the OP has, a fight can break out before they get to Nashkel, and the probability of that occurring will increase the longer it takes to get *to* Nashkel [because more time means more checks - the more often the game checks, the more likely it is that the check will result in a fight...].

This is getting awfully "spoilerish" though, and is probably going into too much depth and detail for a thread not labelled as *Spoiler*.... :(

Hickory: There may be a misunderstanding somewhere. My reply was meant to clarify that a fight absolutely CANNOT break out purely because of not heeding the timing of follower quests... it cannot happen, as I said.

Lasivern: As far as I know [from poking around online and experience] the game makes multiple checks with regards to these scripted events occuring; thus the longer you adventure with the same incompatible party members, the more checks you will face, which means the more chances for the event to occur.

If you have definitive information saying otherwise, I'd be happy to see it and of course be ready to admit my mistake.

However, as you say, the timer itself is not the only arbiter of fights,

javihyuga: "Baldur's Gate: why is so highly rated?"
Because it has been given the rating it deserves.

Hickory: The follower quest timers have no relationship, no links with inter-party fights, and cannot under any circumstance be arbiters of said fights. Check the game script bafs in NI yourself if you need to be convinced... I did.

Jonesy89: I get that Baldur's Gate did a lot to breath life into CRPGs, but the issues above and others (rest assured, my list is nowhere near exhaustive) really confuse me as to why people laud Baldur's Gate not as a game that did good things for the genre or a game that was good for it's time, but an objectively great game as if none of these issues were present to affect how it holds up today. Since you have not yet answered Escapist's question, I ask again: why, in light of all the problems that Baldur's Gate has, is it rated so highly? Quite frankly, the only thing that comes to mind is nostalgia, but I welcome you and anyone on this forum to prove me wrong, but you will have to do a bang up job to do so. I have played many games, not just RPGs, that are far older than me that I didn't play when I was younger, and have thus far given up entirely on exactly one (Ultima II), and the only thing that has kept me from giving up on this game as well is a sense of warped duty to try to experience such a lauded landmark in gaming history.