Baldur's Gate I & II - Gather your party before venturing forth

Cleared the mines in cloakwood with my team: Liora, my mage/thief elf, Coran, Dorn, Branwen, Kivan and Quayle. After that, I switched Quayle for that drow sorcerer, one of the new characters in BG:EE (forgot his name) - and he is actually very entertaining. I think, I might keep that group until the end: Coran is the boyfriend, Kivan the best buddy, Branwen the big sister, Dorn the meatshield with an attitude and the drow guy is the comical relief - perfect. And then I have Emma, my spider familiar for cuteness. I really love the BG NPC Project, it gives the characters a lot of depth.
Now I think, I might clear out all the other places before going to Baldurs Gate

I was actually browsing for mods just yesterday, and from what I gathered from the Beamdog forums, the people in charge of the site are aware of the problem and are working on it. It's a server issue, should just be temporary downtime. Spellhold Studios is also down since they're on the same server.

forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/907632/#Comment_907632

should be a couple of days now before they're back up

Ditched the Blackguard. Potent but too straightforward for me to really have fun. Went with Male Half Elf F/M. Like I said I'm on a bloody old tablet and BG2 crashes every 20 mins or so. That being said, since BG1 was the game that taught me "Quicksave is life" I've dealt with it. Managed to update it a bit too so finalyl got Dorn. (The other reason I restarted) Decided to use Rasaad's portrait as I didn't have a chance to import some better ones from online. Ho hum.

Going CHAR, Dorn, Korgan, Viccy, Edwin(a), and the revolving door again. Albeit Nalia was left in the coronet in favour of Yoshimo. Despite how that goes down I still rather like him. Maybe pick up Jan for the underdark and then replace with Imoen. Or not... I'm not attached to Imoen.

Because I started in BG2 with no save I decided to really try and play out the, "I have no recollection of who you are" scenarios. So any chance text comes up to go, "Xzar, I thought you were dead?" I'll take the choice to avoid it. Actually just left Minsc and Jaheira in their cells figuring I didn't know/owe them anything. (Which kinda stung. I need to do another good playthrough for some Boo action. *Squeek squeek!*)

So far so good. Got out of Irenicus' Dungeon. First thing I do after that?

...Head straight to the Den of the Seven Vales and get right sloshed with Yoshimo. Went upstairs and started that fight. Boy that was a fun fight given it was literally the first fight out of the dungeon I had. Fit right into the character though, and I did make a point of going into that fight still drunk as a skunk. Didn't use Yoshimo's traps or anything, tried to play it out like some drunkard itching for a fight to help forget the torture just walked into someone else's room. Yoshimo was however, quicksaved into a successful Hide in Shadows before the fight. I figure he had a hunch what was coming, but not enough time to set up traps.

Just finished the Planar Sphere a bit ago, never had that mage stronghold so some new fun there to explore. Specifically have not looked ahead or spoiled anything for the mage stronghold.

Combat is mostly me running around with one or two party members trying out different things. I prefer solo or duo combat in the game. (Granted I am not playing on the highest difficulty) As it stands if I walk in with my full party I haven't come across any situation that I can't just roflstomp through. Korgan is a terror and Viccy's got the Ogre gloves and a mean streak I am stoking. I really want the party banter though, so a compromise is reached.

So far I am loving the party dynamics/banter and enjoying the tactical malleability of F/M with a few cleric buffs or Edwin flinging some spells over my shoulder.

I remember BG1 coming out, reading the previews in gaming magazines and thinking it looked amazing. And it was. I think what I liked best was the city itself - you could go in pretty much every building and that just seemed incredible to me at the time.

I never managed to complete it back then, but played BG2 anyway (couldn't complete that one either!). What amazed me about the sequel was all the new classes. I was used to the idea you could be a wizard or a fighter or whatever, but being able to be an assasin or shapeshifter seemed incredible. It had good dungeons too, which the first game rather lacked).

I replayed BG1 a couple of years back and it's fair to say it's far from perfect, but I was impressed by how many things there are to do and bits of cool content you find (like when you walk into a pub and some crazy paladin attacks any evil members of your party). The graphics still look great too. Obviously they're not modern, but they still have a real appeal and they've not dated like a lot of the 3D games from that era have.

I will say the Forgotten Realms setting as a whole doesn't really interest me as much as Bioware's original IPs, maybe because I'm not into D&D, but those games are classics.

What impressed me were the companions.  I had played party-based games in the past, but this was the first time I had played a game where the party members weren't just extensions of the player.  They had their own motives and agendas, they might disagree with you, abandon you, or even attack.

Remembers the time he saw Montaron and Xzar square off against Jaheira and Khalid*

I'm pretty new to Baldur's Gate. Or, I started on it like 11 years ago, but never got very far. Well, today I finally finished the first game. Great game! I have not started on Siege of Dragonspear yet, will take a short break first.
I played as a rogue this playthrough, will definitely try a mage next time. Looks much more interesting. Or maybe I'm just shit at this game, which is actually very likely

Do you guys have any recommendations for party combos? More in terms of banter than class synergy but either is fine. I've played through the series only once so far and I stuck with the "canon party" with the additions of Jan Jansen in BG2 and Sarevok in ToB. It was fine and I adore Minsc and Jan, but I'd like to try out some other party members.

Thanks

I loved Minsc with Jan! I'll try out a couple of these. I don't think I even encountered Haer'dalis my first game so that'll be cool.

I believe if you have Aerie in your party for a while, Quayle will eventually summon you and give you the quest.