Public areas for the friendship impaired would be great. Especially when a lot of people may not have either enough friends on at any given time or not enough who want to raid at all.
Update: If an area were created, then the matchmaking would be up to the players. Since you can only have friends with you for the raid, it would be on your shoulders to interview new people. You wouldn't want to send a friend invite, let alone embark on an extremely challenging mission with people who might be the turd in the punch bowl.
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So start something! Just because prox chat isn't enable doesn't mean we can't just agree to a procedure here on the forums. I propose that the "balcony" area of the tower (the area around and up the ramp to your left when you spawn) be the "hang out for raids area." If you want to raid, go hang out, dance, camp, whatever on this balcony; likeminded player will gravitate to this area and you can then use whatever communications methods you can find to setup a raid. Likewise, we can use the area back behind the Speaker's Alcove as the strike hangout area.