I'm going to tell you something that will blow your mind and you will not hear this anywhere else.
Start by developing a Multiplayer Chat App or grab this FREE Advanced Chat System for Lobby and Matches from FAB.com. I also suggest using Collaborative Viewer Template to Start not the typical Third/First Person Templates. All of the above ere Multiplayer-First ready!
Why Start with a Chat App?
Because, in the process of developing a Chat App you will grasp the concept of sending ‘messages’ from server to clients, single client with private message channels, creating group channels to send to specific groups of clients.
Sending Messages is at the core of Unrealengine’s Networking with Remote Procedural Calls but more so they are fundamental with any concept of communication. Messages can be anything from single to large sets of bits, bytes, integers, floats, words.
Messages can be:
- An instruction to 'Spawn/Destroy/Orientate Actors
- Change AI States to Guard/Patrol/Attack
- Messages between internal subroutines/functions to process logic
- much much more.
Additional UE4 Networking Resources
Videos
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hDRoglljXjo
https://youtu.be/z7DI17JAGQM
https://youtu.be/hDRoglljXjo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J0bLy3AVJt4
https://youtu.be/5mEmisqfy7w
Documents
https://docs.unrealengine.com/en-us/Gameplay/Networking
Multiplayer Network Compendium | An Unreal Engine Blog by Cedric Neukirchen
BP_NetworkingDesignPatterns - Google Slides
https://dev.epicgames.com/community/snippets/XPGO/unreal-engine-techlord-s-network-patterns
Work with what you have or can get access too...
Not with what you don’t have or cannot! You may come up with something entirely new and cool with some imagination. Tons of FREE Stuff on FAB to create cool game with.
If you can muster up some monies (which can be easier to do in some cases), I’d recommend purchasing a Game Template from the Marketplace.
I get it. You got inspired from playing AAA games. But the reality is, those games are developed by Teams of the Best in their field! Took me a long time to understand this. I’ve modified my game concept to fit what I have access to, not the other way around.
Today, I’m developing a Cool Game concept I would never had imagined when I started with UnrealEngine.
The other option is to join a Team developing a similar game or ...
join an Active Game Dev Community to discuss game dev and other possibilities. But note you are going to have to put in some work to learn and apply your new skills to game dev.
