A7 can do everything you need it to do (8 players, lobby/chat system), so you really don't have any reason to switch to another engine. They won't be any easier. And you really don't want to go with the WYSIWYG editors, like FPS Creator. Every game you make turns out the same and the engine itself is lame, to say the least.

In otherwords, if you don't know how to program, you have two options:

*Learn how to program yourself
*Find someone who will program for you. 90% of the time you'll have to be ready to pay.

Like the others have said, multiplayer is a tricky thing to work with. If I were you, I wouldn't start learning to make multiplayer games until I knew the rest of the engine very well.