Guild Wars 2

After defeating the last boss on the platform of the Thaumanova Reactor, there were large explosions all around me. Our party stood around for minutes wondering what to do while pieces of the the platform continued to disappear. There was no option or popup screen to take our party back to the observatory. This has happened to me twice with 2 different parties. Whenever I approach the Mistlock Observatory portal from Lions Arch I only get the option to do the story mode even though I’ve killed the boss twice. I’m eager to try the new Fractals but I’m stuck repeating the story.
Does anyone have a workaround for this?

Did you ‘talk’ to the giant glowy ball of light?

Also stuck.. in the cannon room dead. I started the instance and there is no waypoint, so unlike everyone else I cannot log out and back in… I’ve been dead for 20 minutes while the rest of my party finish the story. Yes I’m a nice guy. Pls put a waypoint in for res.

I don’t recall seeing a giant glowy ball of light after defeating the boss. Our party was still running around trying to avoid the disappearing platforms AFTER the boss was dead. Me and another person found that the spot where the boss was at (surrounded by an opaque hexagon wall) was safe but we couldn’t figure out how to get off the entire platform. When some of my party members fell through the platform they tried to relog to revive but they were stuck in the Mistlock observatory when they tried to go into the middle to get back to the map. I’m assuming they couldn’t return because the story mode was finished yet there was no dialogue or confirmation for those still in the reactor.