Rambling about forums and about to start my first raid

I don't really know how forums work, beyond just getting news updates and posting questions - Is it bad form to post something with non-utilitarian content? I had the same issue actually when I first started using Fedi (Mastodon for the uninitiated) - it took me a few months before I figured out how to just socialise - instead of just trying to think of purely informative or functional things to post. I figure it would be nice to try and be a bit more social here so unless it does turn out to be poor etiquette, I think I'm just gonna post random stuff about my experience in the game.

I recently got back into the game after not playing for about 4 years, I left of at around combat level 47 i think, I decided to continue with the same profile despite the advice to start a new one and im now combat level 58 - I feel like I level up a good bit faster now? but maybe that's just because it's been 4 years so I've forgotten. Although I actually haven't put much time at all into leveling up - I really like the new content book and so I've been going back and trying to catch up on all the low level stuff - but I decided to start progressing again and now I'm about to enter my first raid

I don't really know anything about raids, I don't *think* they even existed when I last played? (Although i may have just not heard of them because I was too low of a level). I'm curious how they differ from traditional dungeons, beyond that they - evidently - require a party of 4 people. How advisable is it to just go ahead with the random "matchmaking"? instead of being in a party with friends

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so I pretty much just got hard carried - It felt a bit like a more structured dungeon - I liked it. The rewards seemed really good too - 1.5 liquid emeralds a bunch of tier 4 powders (although I never use powers tbf) - never gotten higher than tier 3 before. And some Corkian Augments - i've heard the name before but never seen any nor knew what they did. I also have absolutely no idea what aspects are but it did something with those