Please come back to me on this, Slotman. A lot of people are saying similar things, so it is an issue, but they never respond when questioned on it. Is it a misunderstanding, or purely down to misleading documentation, or is it the array of options, even in the knowledge you don't have to use them?
Well, I do know C++/OOP - that's not a problem for me (I did a demo/game purely with it, using a Brazilian OpenGL engine "Fly3D", called Penguin Racer - if anyone wants to see it, it's on my website) - But I've seen several people who even knew how to code in C, looking at C++/OOP and getting completly lost.
But in my view, the docs are the biggest problem, hands down. They need instructions on how to setup MingW, they need examples for all commands, it really needs to be more complete. The forum here does help out A LOT, but how many people would even take the time to look at it? Specially since you can only post if you purchased at least one BRL product...
One example why docs are bad? Why cant I do a simple SEARCH for the command I need? For ex: it took me a while to find the Framework command - It was on Language->Modules, and at the end of the page... and even the the description is rather simple, for such a powerfull command.
Information seems scattered around on the docs... I took a look at the "community help" done in a CHM file, and it's waaaay better then BMAX default one. Much more easier to find info on what you're looking...
But, again on OOP: There's a "paradigma" here... the language is BASIC - which was created to be learnt as a first language - so it should stay simple.
One could easly just learn C/C++/C# (or even Python) instead of BMAX - there's not much of a difference between both languages (at least not in my eyes), and both (when done right) are portable. The biggest advantage on BMax side, is that it already have a graphical/sound engine "built-in" which is also portable, and has a garbage collector (so you don't have to worry about de-allocing something), while on C you have to start OpenGL from scratch (window creation, setting up matrix, loading images/3d files... believe me, it's a pain, I've done it), or use SDL or some 3rd party engine.
So, for a completle newbie, try argumenting that BMax is better, and he should learn it instead of C# and XNA... or C++/OpenGL/Glut/whatever. The difficulty would be almost the same to learn both, so why not go for a "wider", more known solution?
Can you see the problem? BMax is BASIC, so it's easy to learn; it's portable, stable, very fast and has OOP and several options (yay!), which makes it not so simple for first timers... also the IDE doesn't help much, the docs are not very helpful, and you will have to install and setup extra stuff if you want to use it to it's full potential; and there's no built-in 3D...
That being said, if someone asks me which language/engine could someone use to do a 2D game, I'll recommend BlitzMax without thinking it twice. There's also Torque, which is growing a lot (specially now that it works also on the 360) - but I just don't like Torque :P
[dream mode on]
Hey, here's an idea... maybe Mark could contact Microsoft and see if there's a way to "port" BMAX into the 360/XNA stuff? Would be cool to have portability from PCs/Macs and also to consoles :)
[dream mode off]
For me, BMax is on a tough spot - it is a very good language, and it has lot's of potential, but everything around it needs to be improved, to be recognized as reliable option to other solutions out there...
(wow, didnt think I was gonna write that much heh)