I read this article over at Pet Food Alpha.

Quick summary is this.  There is an impossibly hard monster to beat in Final Fantasy XI.  A linkshell finally made it to the point of starting the fight with this monster, and after 18 hours, found it impossible to beat.  People got sick because they spent so much time trying to beat it.

This has created a row in the FFXI endgame community.  Basically they’re calling bullshit on SE’s method of making super-hard bosses an endurance challenge (versus a skill challenge).

I’m not sure I agree… The again, I can’t disagree either.

On one hand, I think SE’s method of making fights endurance challenges is a display of poor design and programming.  It’s also disingenuous to have a sign in screen that says “we have no desire to see your real life suffer as a consequence [of playing the game],” then go design a boss fight that the devs estimate is at least an 18 hour fight.

On the other hand, if you, as a player, know that a fight might wander into the territory where it’s going to get unhealthy for you to participate (say, past 4 hours), then you’ve got little reason to complain. You’ve made the choice to do something that most reasonable people will look at you cock-eyed for doing.