i hadnt done a real deep dive yet, but from introductory readings on a few engines this was my impression too on what we are looking for in general. Glad to know im not the only one to feel it.
>So ideally you and I would have access to a 2D or 3D engine that had multiplayer out of the box, could write game mode code that was networked to connecting clients even if they didn't have the game mode, and allow them to download assets they were missing as well. And while you were playing the game, had the ability to change the game code on the fly and send it to clients so you could develop and play test in real-time.
Yeah pretty much, though the last part would be icing - restarting the game / reconnecting to the server in response to anything more than parameter tweaks is okay. just really want to avoid excessive manual file management
>If you have found some other software like this, though, I'd love to hear about it.
I wish. If there are, then they dont support 3D PC games, because my search has been limited to that.
given how long ago garysmod was, i would be very surprised if no one has tackled those principles from the game engine standpoint already. I'm guessing any team that prioritized multiplayer sandboxing in building the game engine must have made the engine propriety and built a game studio around it.
Is Planimeter Game Sandbox something I can check out? or is that more of a target and Planimeter Game Engine 2D is the current iteration?
My next research step for myself was going to be to look at the tools in the WebAssembly ecosystem