GameBanshee Forums

This is probably not the place for this, butr I found it really interesting...maybe others will as well.

Of the various game forums here on Gamebanshee, which has the most activty in terms of numbers of people viewing the forum?

If you guessed Oblivion, seemingly the hottest thing out there right now - you would be wrong.

In fact, Oblivion isn't even second - it is in third place. Morrowind is in second place.

And in first place?

Balder's Gate II - a game that is 6 years old.

Statistics as of right now:

Balder's Gate II: 82 viewing

Morrowind: 28 viewing

Oblivion: 24 viewing

Neverwinter Nights: 15 viewing

I have been watching this for several days - the patterns are pretty stable.

I am amazed - I loved Balder's Gate as much as anyone - but I am simply amazed at how much staying power the game has against such strong, recent competition.

Moving to GameBanshee Discussion, and yes, it is an interesting statistic.

Despite Morrowind and Oblivion being worlds, BG is an universe, a multiverse, to explore. Ahh, the memories.

I am not at all surprised. Once you have played BG2, you are spoiled forever. I like many aspects of Morrowind (once the game is modded) but for depth, complexity, story and character development it simply cannot compete against BG2.
I am currently replaying Planescape Torment, and that is even richer than BG2.

*sigh* I miss Black Isle...

You people are making me want to play them...not sure I could find Planetscape: Torment and BG1 in this area though, although I could probably find Baldur's Gate 2.

@Rookierookie
I think I have seen PS:T and BG1 around online... If you try a Google search you might find something.

[QUOTE=Rookierookie]You people are making me want to play them...not sure I could find Planetscape: Torment and BG1 in this area though, although I could probably find Baldur's Gate 2.[/QUOTE]

I have them. I don't play them.

It doesn't surprise me to be honest, those statistics. A newer game will have more people playing it than posting about it. An older game will have people who replay the game, and discuss the best way to make it more enjoying when replaying it.

Its a nice thought that what drew me here nearly 5 years ago is still attracting many people today Memories indeed.

Baldur's Gate II will always be the game that put GameBanshee on the map, and there are a few main reasons for this. First of all, it's an amazing game. I firmly believe that no RPG released since Baldur's Gate II (including Oblivion) has even come close to offering better gameplay. A true classic in every sense of the word.

Secondly, it was the first game that I really covered on the site, and therefore it received my full attention. I didn't have sixty different games to monitor news for, MySQL databases to maintain, logs to sort and parse, or hundreds of emails to read through each day. I also didn't have a family at the time, so I could easily devote 8-12 hours to the game in one session. Those were the days .

Finally, there were no official forums for the game when it was released. BioWare's website didn't have much of a presence, nor did it have any message boards for the public, and Black Isle Studios didn't have their forums up and running until just before Icewind Dale II was announced, if I recall correctly. GameBanshee was one of only a handful of sites that had a forum devoted to the game.

Because of the reasons I listed above, we garnered quite a community for Baldur's Gate II on GameBanshee, and that community has largely stuck around (and I thank you for that!). Oblivion might be very popular right now, but many of the people looking to discuss the game will most likely visit the official forums linked to from the game's splash screen. And since the game was designed to appeal to a massive console audience, it's my opinion that it has been simplified enough that gamers will hardly ever find themselves "stuck" and need to visit any type of forum to resolve the issue. If you just follow the quest journal verbatim and use some common sense, you really don't ever need any outside help.

Now that Buck mentions it, I think it probably was Balder's Gate II that originally attracted me to this site....

...and I certainly didn't mean to imply that there was something wrong with BGII - I was simply amazed at its staying power.

BG II is a great game for many reasons, but for me it is absolutely unmatched in one particular dimension: Depth of the NPCs. I have never seen a game in which the NPCs had so much character, where they really were living, breathing characters - characters you CARED ABOUT. Tears actually came to my eyes at the end of Throne of Baahl when we learned about the post-game fates of the NPCs. I have never seen such depth in another game - nothing even close.

A few nights ago I had a moral decision to make in Oblivion: Would I really screw over some innocent NPCs? I didn't hesitate long - I would get a big reward for doing so - so why not? I didn't care about them at all. Only later did I realize that I would never have done something similar in Balder's Gate - at least to the band of playable NPCs. I *did* care about them.

Curiously, the only other games in which I have had similar emotional attachments to NPCs have been Bioware games.....

So - if you haven't played BG II, give it a shot. Even with the dated graphics, it is well worth it...