Reading up on the whole GPG saga - I didnt know that Age of Empires Online was halted, but I could have told you back when it came out that it was insanely risky to go like they did. Micro-transactioned, pay-per-civilization (without even a full roster of civs) it went against what the Age of.. games always were. Competitive, historical rts games loaded w/ a ton of content for your bucks. Lots of civs, lots of strategies, lots of cool stuff.
Like most I played AoE online a bit, I actually liked the cartoony look and the back to basics gameplay. Then they held me back and pressed me for money, then I went and played something else. Actually i think it was Age of Mythology, a game I still love and play to this day. RTS gameplay is not MMO play, you cannot ration it out in like they can get away w/ in mmos. I'm not surprised at all.
Wildman was even more risky - prehistoric theme, claiming it was action rpg while talking all about RTS. There's no arpg there, it's simply an RTS w/ a hero, that's nothing new. Stank of MOBA style gameplay, while insisting on "singleplayer first"? It just looks like a bunch of conflicting information. While i like the theme, i have to admit it looked pretty… meh.
I think the last article I read was dead-on when it said that people would have supported something from GPG's lineage of games - another Supcom, or DS, or someting of that nature would have possibly worked. People want more of the same w/ some new stuff. Nostalgia sells on kickstarter. I had no problem at all throwing money at a
Dungeon Keeper clone, Ive been dying to play a new DK for a decade. Even Grimoire, sure I'll give the nostaligic dungeon crawler of a madman a shot. But a Prehistoric moba-looking thing..