In 2005, while everyone was wondering if cheeky upstart World of Warcraft could permanently dethrone the likes of EverQuest and Final Fantasy 11, Hudson’s Japanese-only MMO Master of Epic arrived with an emphasis on travelling through time, its zones made to feel brand new when visited in very different eras. Despite a novel premise, the colourful fantasy MMO launched and quickly slid into the background. A flurry of anime adaptations and enthusiastic marketing were not enough to give it much purchase in the new MMO world WoW would soon command.
This is how many MMOs die. Lost down the cracks, unable to secure further funding after failing to immediately usurp whatever was hoovering up all the money at the time. Or they’re quietly shuttered to cut costs after one company acquires another, as Konami did with Hudson in 2011. But it’s how some MMOs live, too. They attract a dedicated audience happy to stick by them no matter what, publishers satisfied with the small but sustainable niche they’ve created.
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Dialing in
The client used to access the game is, by modern standards, equally laid back; the huge update required to get it up to date taking somewhere in the region of nine hours to complete, with only a tiny progress bar and minimal information to keep my impatient self company. Still, as snags go I’ll happily take it as the whole process, from creating an account to logging in, is easier (even in Japanese) than the modernised version of FF11’s infamously awkward PlayOnline service.
The game awaiting me beyond the patching process is like something trapped in amber, untouched by the passage of time, technology, or trends. My character customisation options are limited to four races with just five unique hairstyles and face textures each, this simplicity in stark contrast to the overwhelming spaghetti of systems that come after:
Pets, homes, factions, time travel, with each era possessing its own features and storylines… there’s so much to take in, and for every feature I learn (or politely set aside for later) two more seem to pop up in its place.
My character has a stamina bar that decreases when they move, and if it gets too low they’ll shuffle, rather than sprint. They can get hungry and thirsty if I don’t feed them—and I figure out pretty quickly I must feed them, or else they might stop while I’m fleeing an enemy to rub their belly in hunger.
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Conspicuous by its absence is any sort of job, class, or levelling system. When my mysteriously adrift adventurer washes ashore in the tutorial area they’re not a warrior or a healer or anything at all, they’re just them. And this is where Master of Epic gets really interesting: I am whatever my experiences make me. If I want to master daggers then I have to spend some time swinging them at monsters. If I wish to specialise in spells then I need to buy scrolls and practice casting them. And even though I’m never forced into any particular role I do have to choose something as I can only earn 850 points in total, spread however I please across every available skill.
Thankfully I can manually lock or even choose to level specific skills down as others go up, allowing me to free up and reallocate skill points later if I’d rather learn something else or refine my build.
What if nobody ever levels up that skill and I look like a dummy in front of all the oldbies?
It’s not the first game to do something like this—FF11 also tracks abilities—but MoE takes it so much further, assigning a points value to almost everything I do. Spending time in the water makes me a better swimmer. Resting after battle improves my ability to recover. Even dying can, in the long run, be a positive, stat-strengthening move. Every mishap is an opportunity for permanent growth. I’m in awe of the freedom MoE offers. And terrified, too.
What if my choices don’t synergise well? What if I’m using the wrong weapon or spent my precious gold on the wrong spell? What if nobody ever levels up that skill and I look like a dummy in front of all the oldbies? There’s bound to be some meta, especially after all these years.
Dressed for success
Watch On
Although if I’m honest, nobody seems to care much about my presence. I spent my time on the most populated of the three available servers, and everyone I saw (and there was always someone to see, even on a random weekday) was busy doing their own thing. Some were showing off their fancy effect-spewing gear—colourful sparkles and similar—while others rushed off to places unknown or /yelled about the items they had for sale. It’s not Stormwind, but I didn’t have to go looking for signs of life either.
Unlike in modern MMOs, I have to make an effort to look for quests as there are no shiny icons hovering over NPC heads or special markers on my maps. When I was asked to find someone called Mariel in Bisque’s harbour I was expected to go down there and look for her myself, and after I cleared her simple quest it was on me to double back to the starting area’s questgiver and see if they had anything else for me.
After years of being spoiled by various teleportation services, fantasy taxis, and rideable animal companions, I felt a bit put out.
But a few weeks later I remember that walk, and Master of Epic’s world feels a little bit more connected and alive for expecting me to pay attention instead of mindlessly racing from one exclamation mark to the next.
MoE demands more than my time or even money: it wants me to really care. To work out how to reach the coast. To remember where a particular NPC is. To wonder if the guildmaster has something for me. To wander around and learn where the shops selling things I need are. These “inconveniences” make the game immersive in ways most modern equivalents can only dream of, the relatively slow pace leaving me with no choice but to notice what is in here. I recognise the names of local guards. I sit and watch the sun rise by the castle gates as my health bar recovers.
It never feels “inefficient” to take the long way around here or to go off exploring, because the slow pace and constant friction is all part of the experience. I’m not going to reach the endgame in a month or two, but I’m not supposed to either.
/Fight
I am supposed to do a lot of fighting though. The unhurried pace makes FF11, a game I once set real-world alarms for so I could initiate summoner battles during the correct elementally-aligned Vana’diel day, look speedy.
Even killing a basic monster takes a while; I need to commit, to let autobattle do its thing while I activate the odd skill or spell (many of which share the same cooldown timer). As is to be expected from a minor 2005 MMO, I’m not dodging a disco’s worth of lights on the floor but carefully picking a single target and taking care not to aggro anything else, unless I like the thought of walking back to my corpse. I try to be careful but of course I die a lot anyway, and gladly keep coming back for more. Because there’s so much to consider—the travelling, the fact my equipment will break when its durability runs out, the hunger, the skills, the very real danger of death—even ordinary fights become memorable events.
Every new “convenient” update in a more popular MMO, every bit of streamlining or additional help elsewhere, only makes this stubborn little time capsule stand out even more
Like “The Spider Incident.” I needed to kill three Venom Tarantulas. Thinking nothing of it, I rushed out and started hitting the first one I could see. I Alt+Tab out, because to be honest battles take long enough in this game that I usually can, and when I came back… I was dead. OK, my fault. Try again. I found the same spider. It tears through my health bar again. I, being clever, retreat, running so far away it’s not in range or in my line of sight. I sit down to strategically recover my health.
And then I see it a minute later, walking over the horizon, ambling straight for me.
So I run even further away; way, way out into areas they’re never found in. A short while later it catches up again, still determined to kill me off. Frustrated, I leap into the sea, and hide underwater for as long as my character can hold their breath. It’s on the shore. It’s walking straight into the water. It’s swimming towards me. I die. Again.
I hate that spider’s guts, but I’ll never forget it.
Making memories
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I’m sure I could play this for the rest of the year and still not come close to achieving anything of note, but even after my short spell with MoE I can see why it’s survived this long. Every new “convenient” update in a more popular MMO, every bit of streamlining or additional help elsewhere, only makes this stubborn little time capsule stand out even more.
Cracking into a decades-old community isn’t easy at the best of times. Even so, I could see how committed people still are to the game; relaxing in their personally-summoned hot springs, gathering in the local arena for battles, and selling valuable wares I could only dream of finding for myself. I could see the long lists of invite-only clans organising for raids I hadn’t even heard of, and serious groups who logged on purely for progress’ sake. The game still hums with life, and the only thing separating me from them is time and effort.
I know I’ve barely scratched the surface, but these active players buzzing around give me something tangible to aspire to—I just have a few quests to work through before I can join them.
The skill system is a time-sapping wonder, a permanent, interactive record of my in-game achievements. No other game maps “Hello ” to left click by default, causing my character to say “Hello Minor Snake” out loud for the whole server to see instead of whacking said Minor Snake with a mace if my finger slips. I’ve made memories here, unique ones I wouldn’t get anywhere else in places no other game has. And like everyone else still logging in to MoE, I look forward to making more.
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