It's Pandemonium in Final Fantasy XI
News has spread of a grueling new enemy encounter in Final Fantasy XI. The Notorious Monster (NM) Pandemonium Warden is one of the strongest opponents players can face in the game. But it seems Square-Enix may have raised the bar too high, given the extremes to which players must go to defeat Pandemonium Warden.
A linkshell (guild) called Beyond the Limitation recently faced off against Pandemonium Warden over an 18 hour period, but the NM was still going strong. The NM shapeshifts into multiple forms, making it even more of a challenge to defeat; Beyond the Limitations fought Pandemonium Warden through twenty of his possible forms, some of which took hours to kill. Pet Food Alpha, a Final Fantasy XI community site, quotes a member of Beyond the Limitation stating: "People were passing out and getting physically ill. We decided to end it before we risked turning into a horrible new story about how video games ruin people's lives."
There is the argument that the particular endgame encounter is geared towards the most hardcore linkshells in FFXI, but it stands to reason that a linkshell powerful and knowledgeable enough to reach that point would take on Pandemonium Warden with optimal efficiency. A member of Beyond the Limitation, going by the name Rukenshin, has posted a definitive account of the event and specifically addresses the publicity drawn to their encounter, which is well worth a read.
What's your take on this? How long should it take for your guild or linkshell to collectively bring down a single enemy in Final Fantasy XI, or any MMO for that matter?
