Highly Notorious Monsters

[Alhanelem]

So you would like to tell everyone that HNM's had absolutely zero effect on the popularity of the game at that point in time?

Yes. Absolutely zero. Nobody bought the game because there were HNMs in it. In fact, nobody who bought the game likely knew what HNMs were. When zilart was out, the game was brand new in north america. It's purely because it was a young game, it was Final Fantasy, and it was an MMO with a real storyline.

HNMs were a part of the game, and they were something that some of the most advanced players in the game enjoyed, but they were not a selling point of the game or a reason why anyone picked the game up and started playing it.

Forced pop Notorious Monsters.

Yes. FORCED POP NMs. Not world spawns. Even then, we didn't look at the box of FFXI and say, "Ohh, there's this place called sky with big scary monsters in it! I'm buying this!"

FFXIV without HNMs is like christmas without cookies:

If you were one of the elite, high end players that played this content, yes. Otherwise, no.

Although the actual fights themselves were fun, what you had to go through to be able to experience them was like cookies with diarrhea poured all over them.

There's a reason why most major bosses in FFXI aren't world spawns anymore.