Why is there no AU Hard server?

[dimi]

Precisely. If you want AU server it must be hosted in Asia-Pacific region to keep the ping reasonably low. So even if there are EU servers that could atm be used for something else it is no solution to simply change a name of one of them to AU instead of EU. It still remains in Germany, so the ping from AU would be over 300...

I'm aware of the situation with the ping, and I'm not suggesting that you simply rename a server. I was thinking dropping some of the servers completely, you still have to pay for the all the empty EU servers right?

Yup. it simply requires some donations to cover the costs. Those are not significant amounts, like Kip wrote in the abovementioned thread, few bucks per month from like 10 ppl would do.

It's probably wishful thinking, but maybe if there's an incentive to donate, more Aussies would. The donate message simply says "If you enjoy this mod consider donating", if people understood they're paying for the servers you might see a rise in donations.

I've only been back for about a week now, but I know that there's a fair few Aussies still playing the game, we could definitely use a hard server.