Sergey "Qfasa" Pavlov, 1977-2021

[Ενας φίλος]

This morning, after two weeks of struggling with COVID-19, our friend and colleague Sergey ‘Qfasa’ Pavlov has died. Together with the community, we grieve.

We started working with Sergey in late 2015, when he joined the forums of Gremlins, Inc. and within weeks became a pillar of the community – suggesting ways to improve the game and helping other players to understand it better.

After a couple of months, he joined us as a community manager, and then began to contribute to other areas – to the point where pretty much every aspect of our studio’s games is currently influenced by his ideas, and his critical thinking.

Within Charlie Oscar, Sergey was the community’s advocate. If players had any comments or concerns, Sergey made sure that we were all made aware of it, and he worked tirelessly to help improve everyone’s experience – whether it was about server connectivity or game balance.

Compared to Sergey, none of us were as level-headed and courteous as he was. When dealing with the community, he empathized with the players, and above all else he was always fair. Once, he banned me from our forums for taking critical comments too personally – and he was right about it.

By helping others, and by pursuing what is just and reasonable, Sergey provided us with a reference point, a standard of how game developers should treat their players.

He disliked b_llsht and he sought to be truthful in all that he did. At some point, we wrote a press-release that claimed that our game has ‘half a million players’. While translating it, Sergey asked me to check the figure. We spent 20 minutes checking it, discovered that the actual figure was 472.700, and so Sergey has insisted that we remove it. Someone else might have waived this off as a nuisance, but Sergey’s integrity accepted no compromises, just like he did not differentiate between players: to him, any player deserved attention and help.

It’s hard to put in words how much we will miss Sergey. I wish that I could still call him and ask for his opinion about a design idea or hear his thoughts on a new game that he just tried. The biggest failure of Sergey was that he did not care about himself as much as he cared for others. When he was already sick with COVID, he couldn’t sleep during the nights, and he spent that time translating various Steam announcements so that we won’t be late with their release.

We comfort ourselves by knowing that Sergey’s last years of life were happy: he worked with games, his biggest passion; he helped people, he made a difference – and the community appreciated it, giving him due respect. This is also where Sergey made many true friends, who came from all over the world and stayed with him for years.

It’s hard to think about the future that does not include Sergey.

We will do our best to stay true to his legacy: to give the community our best effort, and to remain truthful, and just. Personally, I keep asking myself, “what would Qfasa say in this situation?” – and I can already hear him saying that this post is too long, that I should stop piling up the praise and go check that the servers are up and running…

We asked Valve to keep Sergey’s Steam account as a place where the community could leave a final note. You can leave a few words about Qfasa here:

https://steamcommunity.com/app/369990/discussions/0/3050608970467328849/

We thank everyone who expressed their support and offered help while Sergey was fighting for his life in the hospital. His work brought happiness to others. When Sergey met new people, he always assumed that they were good people. Let’s remember him by being just that – a bit kinder and a bit more honest to others.

Farewell, Sergey “Qfasa” Pavlov.

26/06/1977 – 06/07/2021

[Toxicant 不高兴]

R.I.P

[uio]

R.I.P

[Starina Bjørn]

OMG

I express my condolences. May he rest in peace.

[jack_was]

(i)

[Garet_S]

(i)

[Globter]

R.I.P . At my country COVID no exist .

[Wok]

Sad. I have just learnt about this after your post in the news section. RIP Qfasa.