What are engine are you going to use in the future? I have looked at C4, and Unity as possible options for myself.
I wouldn't say 3dgs is dying, but I do think things could be going better. Just a couple of things:
- Basic GIF format support that could remove the need for code
- New Shaders such as realistic 3d water, etc (the Shaders that 3dgs supports are truly horrible with only a couple of exceptions that usually increase memory usage a lot)
- Skyboxes (I wont even go there), there is so little choices
- Basic weather scripts that don't kill your FPS
(the new 8.10 snow script looks pretty good but kills ur FPS)
- Numerous FLAG issues already mentioned
- Most games look cartoonish like you said and the range of games possible to be made with 3dgs is very small, it's like only RPG games are really supported
- Basic features that are needed for some games are missing
- Multiplayer functions could be improved
- Many other features could be implemented to make 3dgs a whole lot better than it already is