Our dearest Gromph has passed away

EviLore

Expansive Ellipses
Staff Member
With the heaviest of hearts, I regret to inform you all that NeoGAF's long-time heroic system administrator, Gromph Gromph , has passed away suddenly.

Gromph, real name Raúl, built NeoGAF's infrastructure and oversaw the technical aspects of our growth into a huge community over the course of more than a decade.

He performed the system migration from vBulletin to Xenforo in 2017-2018. Other sysadmins told me that it was physically impossible to be done in the time frame that Gromph did it, as our database is enormous, but he found a way to keep the downtime to an absolute minimum and ensure a smooth transition to our current platform with all 100+ million posts intact.

He cared about this place and was always there to ensure we were able to keep going. Gromph stuck around for the good times and the not-so-good times alike, without hesitation. I can't overstate how much of a technical challenge it was to keep the site operational on our old vB platform, which was never designed to scale to that level. But he got it done.

He was an excellent friend and a badass competitive billiards player. He even had a custom NeoGAF cue case made that he brought to tournaments.

The world is far worse off without him.

Rest in peace, Raúl.
 
Condolences. Rest in peach, Gromph.
 
That really sucks. He didn't post much but I always found him entertaining, and the forum transition he pulled off was a smooth piece of work.

:messenger_pensive:
 
Rest in peace friend. Even though we never knew each other, you impacted my life through Neogaf. The community will forever be indebted to you.
 
EviLore EviLore , I'm so very sorry for the loss of your friend. My prayers go out for all of Raúl's family, friends, and other loved ones for comfort in the memories they've shared with him over the years.

Rest in peace, Raúl. God bless you, and may you find eternal joy in the next plain of existence.
 
RIP Raul, Gromph. I appreciate the little bit of his legacy I know, here in Neogaf. I'll pray for comfort for his family and friends.
 
I only contacted him a couple of times when I was not sure if a technical issue I was having was a "Me" issue or a "GAF" issue. He was patient and helpful both times. RIP and thanks for keeping GAF running smoothly all these years.
 
This guy was without a doubt a real wizard and true friend that will be absolutely missed. Rest in peace buddy.
 
RIP. Didn't know him personally, but thankful for his hard work. He must've been talented to keep up with an enormous website like this.
 
I don't know the guy, never seen him, but according to Evilore's post he's a huge asset, and looks like will be missed a lot.

My condolences.
 
This is really disheartening to hear, Gromph Gromph always seemed on the case whenever there was technical issues and he always came on top of the case. He will truly be missed. He also was pleasant to interact with.

Rest in peace, Raúl.
 
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I'm so sorry for this loss 😢
My condolences.
"May Khenarthi fly him to the Sands Behind the Stars 💕"
 
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RIP Gromph.

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Sometimes we forgot forums are made by people with their life out of the internet, and so we give too much importance to silly things.
 
Damn, played FFXI with him back then in 2008 that's when he first joined GAF. Really chill dude, never complained or anything. R.I.P. friend.
 
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