Blog

Full Standard on NRO Coming Soon (+ NRO//TEST 3)

By Lucille L. Blumire

Full Standard on NRO Coming Soon

Full Standard will launch on NRO in a little over a month from now, on the 19th of November.

To go along with this, there will be a long list of improvements to the existing JNRO client, based on feedback and including feature work that has always been planned.

  • The Borealis cycle, 128 more implemented cards
  • The Standard format
  • A new lobby browser and quick play system
  • Game history, replays, and statistics
  • A built-in card browser and working search in the card browser and deck editor
  • Many other QoL improvements in the deckbuilder
  • Many improvements to board state clarity
  • A fully redesigned timing control system to make play easier and faster (a full article will be released on this alongside the update)
  • A more intuitive undo system
  • Open and blind decklist options
  • Built-in keyword explanations for new players
  • Several performance and efficiency improvements

There’s even more that I’m working on, but I’m confident that everything listed above will make it into the 19th of November release.

As the current JNRO client represents a significantly older build, I would not recommend using it between now and the 19th. It will not give you a representative experience of the upcoming release.

NRO+

When the client updates, you will see + icons on disabled buttons in some places. These are features that are locked behind having an NRO+ account. We’ll never put something you need in order to play the game behind NRO+, but we need to keep the servers funded. NRO+ subscriptions won’t be available to purchase for the time being.

This will form one of the two main pillars of funding for this project, alongside community art being available for purchase in-game, with partnered artists taking a share of any profits. This is something I’m passionate about seeing grow, to help support all of the wonderful artists in the Netrunner community, and to help keep this project sustainable.

Player Cap

Right now, some initial load testing indicates we should be able to handle around 750 people playing at the same time before the server runs out of RAM. Sadly, we are limited by RAM rather than CPU utilisation. For this reason, we will be capping the number of simultaneous players at 500 for the time being. If we hit that cap, hopefully it will be after we have enough NRO+ subscribers that we can afford to buy some more RAM for the server. Work is ongoing to try and reduce the amount of RAM needed to accurately simulate games.

NRO//TEST 3: Standard

The third NRO//TEST event will be played in the Standard Format on the weekend after the Borealis update lands and so will be held on Saturday the 21st of November, with registration starting at 12:30 GMT and round one starting at 13:00 GMT. This event will be organised on the NRO Discord, so please join to participate. It will be a double-sided Swiss tournament, and if we get enough players, we will hold a double-elimination top cut on the Sunday.

Digital in-game prizing will be announced closer to the event, so keep an eye out for it!