Pandemonium Warden is one of the two highest leveled bosses in Final Fantasy XI (the other boss is Absolute Virtue).
The guild Beyond the Limitation, on
August 13, 2007, after gathering all the necessary inventory and preparation in the real world,
at 3 a.m. Eastern Standard Time, 36 members (the maximum guild size in FFXI) descended into Aydeewa Subterrane, the abode of Pandemonium Warden. The battle was planned to last 6-8 hours, though it was almost an unknown: no one had ever gotten that far in their quest to kill Pandemonium Warden.
18 hours had passed. The demon has already changed 9 forms out of 10. According to the players' estimates, there were still 3-5 hours before the boss died. No one wanted to continue: everyone was tired and exhausted. A few players were naturally vomiting for the last hours (the energizers had kept them strong for the whole marathon, but in the end had a bad effect on their health).
"We are one of very few LS who have killed AV (not using the wall trick) so we know quite well what is futile and what is not. None of us doubt that PW can be killed. We just call into question exactly what the development team thinks is reasonable from human beings."
-Sylphet (one of the participants)
That day, the Pandemonium Caretaker survived.
A few days later, a scandal broke out on the game's forums.
Square Enix was forced to listen to the criticism and cut the boss' health. But now, if players fail to kill the boss within 2 hours, it simply disappears.
Pandemonium Warden was first killed only 5 months later, on January 2, 2009, by the Apathy (Apathy) guild in a very difficult battle. The guild was almost 5 minutes away from failure.
The video below is of another guild (Eminence@Lakshmi) defeating Pandemonium Warden in 2009. No videos of Beyond the Limitation and Apathy battles could be found.
