I recall seeing Mate centers a few months into the life cycle the game, but I do not think it was a common occurrence until even a few months later around summer time the first year. I wouldn't be too certain about it being a later arrival in this game. But I must admit I cannot quite put my finger on "when" exactly it did become present since I never paid too much attention to these mate centers except when they clearly did something they shouldn't. However, I do not recall seeing any the first month the game was up. Someone that might remember bonfiring around in the early days might remember when they started popping up more accurately.
I do feel like Mate centers were not nearly as common or "popular" back then as it is now. It has just become some sort of funky norm for certain users in bonfire whether it is taking part or actually being the mate center yourself, like an activity. As far as it goes to inappropriate "parties" or "centers", just a few weeks into the game being here people were acting up and breaking rules of some sort, dancing on top of each other and yelling profanities into the chat for lolz it has always existed more or less. Freedom is an issue for some obviously.
It's an interesting topic since no one can quite know for certain who started this trend, but the guesses above about it just being someone seeing people going around asking for mates is a very reasonable one to me. When you think about how many users that ask the question "Looking for a mate?" or "Want to be my mate?" or simply just have information about their characters mate status in their bio even, a mate center really is like an express train for those who just don't care all to much or don't even understand the meaning of it. Mate centers are directly targeted at certain type of players and they do not seem to mind. Since we have a lot of the anything goes players around in bonfire, the thing we got to know as mate center easily lives on there, while if you might see one move out in Fluorite trying it's luck there, you see it get shot down instantly by the users since it simply doesn't appeal to most of the players there. FeralHeart just holds so many different types of players even though the game remains the same for all.
