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That was notch's original idea for portals in multiplayer I recall reading. A portal would take you to another server.

This is how the big multiplayer servers available via Bedrock edition work, not so much for distance, but for different game modes. Unfortunately players pay by buying predatory micro-transaction items, which I find near unacceptable in a game so squarely targeted at children.

Hypixel has done that to an extent. The way most servers do it nowadays with with a server proxy that shunts client requests to a specified server transparently -- you "world hop" using in-game mechanics (i.e. walking through a portal, clicking on a sign)

https://www.spigotmc.org/wiki/about-bungeecord/

And as others have already mentioned, WorldQL is an effort to transparently replicate and shard the world without even requiring "world hopping"

I remember seeing a project like that (maybe even here, on HN), but unfortunately I can’t find it

Maybe this one? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28401224

WorldQL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28401224