I'm pretty sure those devs in question weren't chuckling at your expense, but rather came to a painful conclusion after months of struggling with whatever it was that made them walk away. Maybe they were burned-out on the project, suffered writers block, found they painted themselves in the corner, overreached and now regretted ever setting out on this journey, looked back after months of work only to discover they'd barely scratched the surface and would spend the rest of the decade on just the prologue at this rate, or were simply worn down by the constant stream of low grade negativity being poured out over them.
Whatever the reason, it wasn't to have a good laugh at your expense, even if I understand fully how it might feel very sour at the receiving end (I know, I've been there too).
As to LomL, I know from my dayjob on how to deal with running projects that take years to complete so I got into this knowing what to expect. That and the fact that I'm still having more fun than a reasonable person should every day when I boot up my computer and load up one of the characters for a new adventure, means I'm not about to abandon this anytime soon.
