This post discusses the complexities and strategies involved in developing realtime features, particularly in multiplayer applications. Key takeaways include: 1. **Using Phoenix LiveView** can significantly reduce boilerplate code, making development smoother. 2. **Simplicity is key:** Keeping data atomic helps in managing complexity, especially when implementing collaborative features. 3. **Centralized server architecture is often more manageable** than a fully distributed approach, particularly for smaller teams. 4. **Protocol considerations:** A simple JSON patching protocol may work well for updates, barring special cases like text that may benefit from CRDTs (Conflict-free Replicated Data Types). 5. **Operational logging** can help in maintaining data integrity and recovery during server crashes. 6. **Cloudflare's Durable Objects** might provide an excellent balance between performance and sharding capabilities.