It released the same year as Icewind Dale. The next year was Arcanum (same time as BG2 ToB). Less than a year before BG2 was Torment. Then there was a slew of games trying to cash on the original BG i.e. Dark Alliance etc. Then there was a whole bunch of cRPG around the same time i.e. Gothic, M&M7, Anachronox and a little game called Diablo 2 as well as a host of less memorable cRPGs
A whole host of famous jRPGs also released at the same time (Zelda MM, FF etc). My people consider it to be the second golden age of the cRPG (and gaming in general as many big genres were also established i.e. GTA 3).
I'm not sure I would say there wasn't much competition I would just say that there was a hell of a lot of good games released in those years.