Multiplayer engine for an open-world RPG that doesn't require developer to run a dedicated server. Think Skyrim, GTA or Kingdom Come, but with a much smaller bu

Multiplayer engine for an open-world RPG that doesn't require developer to run a dedicated server. Think Skyrim, GTA or Kingdom Come, but with a much smaller budget for content - aside from very fast movement and physics-based mechanics of GTA, this engine could've been used for any of these games. Previous developers did the single-player logic first, and then added very ad-hoc multiplayer sync, hoping that everything will be fine - but if you played long enough, you inadvertently ran into desyncs. So, I had to write first the network engine itself (which was used both for networking and load/save), and then rewrite the whole game logic to take advantage of this mechanism. Now, if you want to write any game mechanic, you have to define it in proper MVC terms (although, due to amount of legacy code, I didn't separate the view and controller as well as I should have). Dozens and hundreds of small scripts for all the unique quest content and game mechanics working on top of a unified platform, relying on it to sync their data, one-off events (think "play sound" command that doesn't change any data but has to be replicated) and not even knowing on which one of connected clients is it run with authority, while all others run this particular object in "slave" mode. I honestly tried to research if any other game developer have used a similar solution, but found nothing - it seems as if all open-world games that have multiplayer rely on dedicated authoritative servers, operated by developer, to run. Here's the project itself, although this update is not yet released: https://store.steampowered.com/app/526160/The_Wild_Eight/ https://store.steampowered.com/app/526160/The_Wild_Eight/ Too bad that at the end of this project I got the worst case of burn out in my career, spiraled into the worst depression episode that I've ever experienced, and now quit the company while struggling to put my life back together. I have no idea if I'll be able to publish anything on this tech, but I still feel that it's been worth it.