There is a story running over at destructoid about a new FFXI boss that takes 18 hours to attempt.  That was not a mistype - the encounter takes 18 hours to attempt - simply insane.

Back in my EQ days when guild would spend up to 8 hours a night raiding - FFXI puts that to shame.  If you think about it, 8 hours does not even get you half way through this encounter.  What is not mentioned in the article is wether this encounter is actually difficult or if it merly a time sink.  If everyone is hitting the same buttons over and over for 18 hours…I imagine everyone would go insane.  Likewise, scripting 18 hours worth of an encounter seems unlikely from a developers standpoint.

Regardless of how the boss is setup, it was interesting to hear about this guild’s story.  People were vomiting and becoming physically ill after sitting there for so long.  The guild that attempted this, Beyond The Limitation, actually had to call the raid off after 18 hours; people simply were unable to physically endure it.  Can you imagine watching an 18 hour movie without ever getting up - this would be even more difficult.

This makes everything else just seem easy or maybe just sane…