So, is this at all related to the LotR MMO Amazon was working on with Tencent a couple years ago, or a new thing?

Hartmann also discussed a number of learnings that he and his team discovered during the development and launch of their most recent MMO New World. Specifically he noted MMOs need to have instant rewards.

He explained, “Everything is about instant reward, and since social media and internet and so on, that instant reward thing is so important. It has to be faster and faster.”

“If you just rely on people figuring out the mechanics very fast because it’s very similar to what they had before, that’s great, but it’s all about accessibility and very early having rewards so they feel progress,” he shared. “And then slowly letting them get better and better, and basically give them an option they can start at a different pace, and not getting frustrated. That’s what’s important.”

The most important thing you should have learned from New World is do your networking and server architecture properly and not rely on client-side validation. Oh, and have a solid amount of content (especially non-PVP content) at launch.

But, that aside, and the woke garbage aside, these paragraphs immediately turn me off to the game. MMO need constant, early rewards is code for "flood them with lootboxes, gifts, etc." as soon as they log in. And every single MMO (heck, game, not just MMO) that has done that inevitably ends up pushing you to the cash shop so that you can keep buying more rewards. And forget that nonsense.