Epic fail

I was reading the comments on an article on the expression "epic fail" in the Guardian and it struck me that nobody really knew its origins.

I may be wrong about this, but I suspect it can be traced back to MMORPGS like Everquest and Everquest 2. In these games, monsters are given different labels to reflect the challenge involved in defeating them. Some are "normal" (can be killed by a single player) some are "heroic" (may require up to six players to kill) and some are "epic" (may require up to 24 players to kill).

It's often the case when fighting the epic mobs (creatures or groups of creatures that require multiple groups of 6 players to kill) that a single mistake made by one person can cause everyone in the raid (the collection of groups) to be killed (a wipe). I always assumed that an Epic Fail referred to a seemingly small mistake made by one person in the raid that causes the epic mob to kill everyone in the raid. A small mistake with big consequences...