I can understand why it happens - like any subset of roleplay, it's a genre. Just like other players pre-arranging an adventure campaign, or pre-arranging a business venture, or pre-arranging a school-type FC. Some people like to read trashy romance novels and have a similarly whirlwind thing take place. Maybe it lasts, maybe it doesn't. Maybe they want one toon to have a healthy, traditional courtship, while their other, darker alt gets into more kinky/abusive shit. Plus, it seems more like a precaution than anything else to me, trying to make sure your partner player won't take it to creepy needy RL territory or cheat on you.
Speaking from my own experience, both of the romances my previous characters from other games went through (LOTRO then GW2) were lengthy, drawn-out affairs that had about a year or so of friendship, laughs and ingame adventures + back-and-forth forum post scenes before developing into intimacy and marriage. That's just my personal preference and what works for me, but others will choose differently in their escapism. Some players will simply be too distracted by RL to fully immerse themselves or put in the writing for a long-term budding relationship.
Mind you, this isn't even touching on more nontraditional relationship territory yet - your menage a trois, harems, open couples and whatnot. But going back to your original question, I think all the LFRP for pre-arranged romances is just another side effect of us returners coming back in droves for Stormblood. "I'm playing the game again because of Square Enix's massive marketing efforts. Now I'm going to look into that particular activity I like."
Speaking from my own experience, both of the romances my previous characters from other games went through (LOTRO then GW2) were lengthy, drawn-out affairs that had about a year or so of friendship, laughs and ingame adventures + back-and-forth forum post scenes before developing into intimacy and marriage. That's just my personal preference and what works for me, but others will choose differently in their escapism. Some players will simply be too distracted by RL to fully immerse themselves or put in the writing for a long-term budding relationship.
Mind you, this isn't even touching on more nontraditional relationship territory yet - your menage a trois, harems, open couples and whatnot. But going back to your original question, I think all the LFRP for pre-arranged romances is just another side effect of us returners coming back in droves for Stormblood. "I'm playing the game again because of Square Enix's massive marketing efforts. Now I'm going to look into that particular activity I like."
![[Image: Pi2KNMr.jpg]](https://i.imgur.com/Pi2KNMr.jpg)
