# acdream — milestones (morale + scope layer)

**Status:** Living document. Created 2026-05-12.
**Sits above:** [`docs/plans/2026-04-11-roadmap.md`](2026-04-11-roadmap.md) (the strategic phase index).
**Currently working toward:** **M1 — Walkable + clickable world.**

---

## Why this document exists

The roadmap is a phase index — week- to month-scale, ~50 phases by the time
v1.0 lands. Phases ship in vertical slices (architecture-first, horizontal
completion deferred), which is the right strategy for a solo open-source
project at this scale — but it leaves a chronic "everything is half-built"
feeling because no single phase ship feels like a real milestone.

This document sits **one altitude above** the roadmap. Each milestone is:

- **~6–10 weeks of focused work** (not a single phase, not a whole year).
- Defined by a **concrete playable scenario** that gets recorded as a demo
  video when the milestone hits.
- A **scope-freeze event**: when a milestone lands, the phases it covers go
  off-limits until v1.0's final polish pass (M7).

Crossing a milestone is a real event with an artifact. Phases ship; milestones
**land**.

---

## Operating rules

1. **One active milestone at a time.** Everything not on the critical path to
   the current milestone gets filed in `docs/ISSUES.md` with a `post-MN` tag
   and explicitly muted until the milestone hits. This is what kills the
   jumping-between-things feeling.

2. **Frozen phases are off-limits.** "Frozen" means no rework, no polish, no
   follow-up commits unless something is actively broken (player crash,
   regression). Visual nice-to-haves, "while I'm here" cleanups, and
   architecture second-guesses are all post-M7. The freeze is the discipline
   mechanism that makes the milestone meaningful — without it, M0's many
   shipped phases keep silently consuming attention.

3. **The milestone log is the morale instrument.** When a milestone hits:
   - Record a ~30-second demo video showing the scenario end-to-end.
   - Drop it in `docs/milestones/MN-<slug>.mp4` (create the directory on
     first hit).
   - Pin a still frame + one-paragraph writeup at the top of this doc.
   - Update the freeze list. Update CLAUDE.md's "currently working toward"
     line to the next milestone.

4. **State both altitudes at session start.** "Currently working toward M1.
   Current phase: L.2 collision. Next concrete step: L.2d slice 1 spec." This
   keeps the high-level orientation visible alongside the immediate task and
   makes mid-session drift obvious.

---

## The milestones

### M0 — "Connect & explore" — ✅ DONE (crossed months ago)

**Demo scenario:** Log in, walk Holtburg in chase camera, see other characters
animate, send a chat message and see the echo, watch day turn to night,
listen to footsteps and ambient audio.

**Phases included (frozen):**

| Phase | What landed |
|---|---|
| 1–3 | Terrain + per-vertex normals + per-cell texture blending |
| 4 | UDP codec + handshake + character login + WorldSession |
| 5 | ObjDesc: AnimPartChange + TextureChanges + SubPalettes + ObjScale |
| 6.1–6.7 | Motion + animation foundation (idle, frame playback, slerp, UpdateMotion, UpdatePosition) |
| 7.1 | EnvCell room geometry — walls/floors/ceilings |
| 9.1–9.2 | Translucent render pass + back-face culling |
| A.1–A.5 | Streaming landblock loader → two-tier streaming |
| B.1–B.3 | Outbound ack pump + player movement + physics MVP resolver |
| D.1, D.2a | 2D overlay + ImGui scaffold + `AcDream.UI.Abstractions` layer |
| E.1–E.5 | Motion hooks + audio + particles + combat wire + spell wire |
| F.1, F.2 | GameEvent dispatcher + item model + Appraise |
| G.1, G.2 | Sky + day/night + weather + dynamic lighting |
| H.1, I.1–I.8 | Chat wire + UI consolidation + holtburger inbound parity + combat translator |
| K, L.0 | Input architecture + retail bindings + Settings panel |
| N.0–N.6.1 | WB rendering migration (modern path mandatory) |
| C.1, C.1.5a/b | Particle system + portal/EnvCell static-script wiring |
| R.1–R.3 | Retail research infrastructure (PDB extract + named decomp) |

**Status:** This is everything shipped through 2026-05-12. ~25 phase ships.
**Worth saying out loud: this is the hard half of the project.** The engine
runs, the world renders correctly, the network connects, the input is wired,
the data layers for combat/spells/items/audio/particles all exist. What's
missing is the gameplay loop on top.

---

### M1 — "Walkable + clickable world" — 🟡 CURRENT, all 4 demo targets met (pending recorded video)

**Demo scenario:** Walk through Holtburg without getting stuck on the inn
doorway. Open the inn door. Click an NPC and see selection feedback. Pick
up an item from the ground.

**Demo-target status (as of 2026-05-14):**

| # | Target | Status | Evidence |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Walk through Holtburg without getting stuck | ✅ met | L.2a/d/g shipped 2026-05-12; Holtburg doorway verified |
| 2 | Open the inn door | ✅ met | B.4b (interaction) + B.4c (swing animation) shipped 2026-05-13 |
| 3 | Click an NPC and see selection feedback | ✅ met | B.4b chain + chat handlers; verified 2026-05-14 (Tirenia + Royal Guard double-click → NPC dialogue in chat panel) |
| 4 | Pick up an item from the ground | ✅ met (close-range path) | B.5 + post-B.5 `PickupEvent (0xF74A)` fix shipped 2026-05-14; visual-verified at Holtburg; creature-pickup guard added in `a01ebd5` |

**What's left to formally land M1:**
- Record ~30s demo video of the four-target scenario end-to-end.
- Drop at `docs/milestones/M1-walkable-clickable.mp4`.
- Pin still + one-paragraph writeup at the top of this doc.
- Flip the freeze list. Update `CLAUDE.md`'s "currently working toward"
  line to M2.

**Known polish items deferred (do not block M1 recording, addressable post-M1):**
- **#61** — AnimationSequencer link→cycle frame-0 flash on door swing. LOW.
- **#62** — PARTSDIAG null-guard. Latent, not reachable today.
- **#63** — Server-initiated `MoveToObject` auto-walk not honored (blocks
  double-click pickup + out-of-range F-pickup; close-range still works).
  MEDIUM. Candidate Phase B.6 — holtburger has the reference port.
- **#64** — Local-player pickup animation does not render (retail
  observers see it correctly). LOW.

**Phases that shipped to clear M1:**
- **L.2 (a + d + g sub-lanes)** — Movement & Collision Conformance.
  L.2a slices 1+2+3 + L.2d slice 1+1.5 + L.2g slice 1+1b+1c shipped
  2026-05-12 / 2026-05-13. Visual-verified via the B.4b doorway test.
- **B.4b** — outbound Use + `WorldPicker` + double-click detection +
  `CollisionExemption` widening + `ServerGuid→entity.Id` translation
  (the ID-mismatch trap surfaced during L.2g slice 1c). Shipped
  2026-05-13.
- **B.4c** — door swing animation: spawn-time `AnimationSequencer`
  registration + stance-value fix (`NonCombat = 0x3D` not `0x01`, which
  had been causing doors to render halfway underground). Shipped
  2026-05-13.
- **B.5** — `BuildPickUp` (PutItemInContainer 0x0019) + `SendPickUp`
  helper + F-key wiring + new `PickupEvent (0xF74A)` despawn handler.
  Shipped 2026-05-14.
- **B.5 polish** (`a01ebd5`) — guard `SendPickUp` against creature
  targets so F-on-NPC produces a "Can't pick that up" toast instead of
  the malformed pickup that triggered ACE's `WeenieError 0x0029` + NPC
  emote chain. (Briefly visited adding "You pick up the X." chat /
  toast feedback for ground pickups in `87ba5c9`, then reverted in
  `20ecb23` — retail doesn't show that line for ground pickups; only
  for items received from NPCs / other characters, and that path is
  separate.)

**Freeze on landing:**
- L.2 zone (collision, cell ownership, transition parity, wire authority)
- B.4 zone (interaction outbound)
- B.5 zone (pickup outbound + inbound despawn)

**What "M1 lands" looks like:** the existing Holtburg traversal works as a
retail player would expect. Doorways are walkable. Buildings have solid
walls. Outdoor cell seams report the right cell. Clicking an NPC selects it
and produces NPC chat. The Use action opens doors. F picks up items at
close range and the player sees "You pick up the X." in chat.

---

### M2 — "Kill a drudge" — 🔵 NEXT (~6–10 weeks after M1)

**Demo scenario:** Equip a sword. Walk to a drudge. Swing. See "You hit
Drudge for 12 slashing damage (87%)" in chat. Watch the swing animation
play. Drudge dies, drops loot. Pick up the loot. Open the inventory panel
and see it.

**Phases to ship:**
- **F.2 (panels)** — Inventory panel reading `ItemRepository` (data already
  shipped in F.2 base; M2 ships the visual surface).
- **F.3** — Combat math + damage flow.
- **F.5a** — Visible-at-login dev panels (Attributes, Skills, Equipped,
  Inventory list) — minimal ImGui surfaces, retail-skin deferred to M5.
- **L.1c** — Combat animation wiring (draw/sheath, attack swings by
  stance/power/height, hit reactions, evades).
- **L.1b** — Command router + motion-state cleanup (prereq for L.1c).

**Freeze on landing:**
- Combat math zone
- Inventory zone (data + dev panel; retail-skin reopens in M5)
- L.1b/c combat-animation zone

**What "M2 lands" looks like:** the gameplay loop is real. You can fight,
take damage, kill things, see loot, manage your inventory. The game becomes
a game.

---

### M3 — "Cast a spell" — 🔵 (~3–4 weeks after M2)

**Demo scenario:** Cast Flame Bolt at a drudge. Watch the cast animation,
the projectile, the impact. Self-cast a buff (Strength Self). See the
enchantment in a buff list. Recall to lifestone — full recall animation,
correct teleport, correct re-spawn.

**Phases to ship:**
- **F.4** — Spell cast state machine (buffs + recalls first, projectile
  spells second).
- **L.1d** — Spell-casting animation wiring (cast command classification,
  windup, release, fizzle/interruption, recoil).
- **F.5 (Spellbook panel)** — dev-skin surface for learned spells + active
  enchantments.

**Freeze on landing:**
- F.4 spell zone
- L.1d cast-animation zone
- Spellbook dev-panel surface

**What "M3 lands" looks like:** mages are real characters. Buffs work,
recalls work, the first projectile spells work. Combat from M2 + casting
from M3 = retail-equivalent gameplay loop for melee and casters.

---

### M4 — "Live in the world" — 🔵 (~6–10 weeks)

**Demo scenario:** Create a fresh character from scratch (no ACE admin).
Spawn. Talk to an NPC. Accept a quest. Walk to a dungeon entrance. Portal
in (pink-bubble loading). Walk through the dungeon. Complete the quest.
Walk back out.

**Phases to ship:**
- **H.3** — Emote scripts + quests + dialogs (122 EmoteType × 39 Trigger
  mini-VM).
- **G.3** — Dungeon streaming + portal space + `PlayerTeleport` handling.
  (Unblocked by L.2e from M1.)
- **H.4** — Character creation (`0xE000002 CharGen` + heritages + appearance
  picker + preview).
- **L.1e** — Emote + posture animation wiring.

**Freeze on landing:**
- H.3 dialog/quest zone
- G.3 dungeon zone
- H.4 character-creation zone
- L.1e emote-animation zone

**What "M4 lands" looks like:** the world feels populated and interactive.
You can do quests, enter dungeons, create characters. Combined with M2/M3,
the client is **functionally playable** — minus visual polish.

---

### M5 — "Looks like retail" — 🟢 PARALLELIZABLE WITH M3/M4 (~4–8 weeks)

**Demo scenario:** Side-by-side screenshot of acdream vs retail at the same
location, same time of day, same character. Hard to tell apart at a glance.
Open the inventory panel — retail-skinned with the right font, icons, and
9-slice panel borders.

**Phases to ship:**
- **C.1.5c** — Sky-PES dispatch chain (closes #2 lightning, #28 aurora,
  #29 cloud thinness).
- **C.2** — Dynamic point lights (fireplaces, lamps, torches with proper
  local lighting).
- **C.3** — Palette range tuning (skin/hair/eye colors match retail).
- **C.4** — Double-sided translucent polys.
- **D.2b** — Custom retail-look UI backend.
- **D.3–D.7** — AcFont + dat sprites + core panels reskinned + HUD orbs +
  cursor manager.
- **L.1f** — NPC/monster + item-use animation coverage.

**Freeze on landing:**
- Visual polish zone (C.1.5c, C.2, C.3, C.4)
- D.2b → D.7 UI-skin zone
- L.1f NPC-anim zone

**What "M5 lands" looks like:** the client visually convinces. Screenshots
become postable. The "old / broken vs retail" feeling that drives most of
the chronic ISSUES.md entries is gone.

---

### M6 — "Plugins ship" — 🟢 (~4 weeks)

**Demo scenario:** A third party (not you) writes a small plugin against
the published API — XP tracker, loot logger, simple chat filter — and it
loads cleanly. Sample plugin lives in the repo with documented build steps.

**Phases to ship:**
- Plugin API surface: stable contract over `AcDream.Core` + `AcDream.UI.Abstractions`,
  versioned, with the world-state interfaces exposed.
- Plugin host: load isolation, lifecycle, error containment.
- Sample plugin (XP tracker or loot logger) — proves the API by using it.
- Plugin docs page.

**Freeze on landing:**
- Plugin API v1 surface (additive changes only post-freeze).

**What "M6 lands" looks like:** the differentiator vs the retail client is
real. acdream offers something retail never did, and the API is documented
well enough that other people can build on it.

---

### M7 — "v1.0" — 🟢 (open-ended polish)

**Demo scenario:** Long-running stress test: log in, play for 4 hours
across outdoor + dungeon + portal + combat + spell + chat scenarios,
reconnect once mid-session, log out clean. No crashes, no protocol errors,
no visual regressions, no audio dropouts.

**Phases to ship:**
- **Phase M** — Network stack conformance (retransmit, ACK piggybacking,
  echo/keepalive, fragment splitting, typed actions). Deferred until now
  because ACE handles loss gracefully — but v1.0 needs proper network
  hardening.
- **H.2** — Allegiance.
- **N.6 slice 2 + N.7–N.10** — Finish WB rendering migration (EnvCells,
  sky/particles via WB, visibility manager, GL infrastructure
  consolidation).
- **Phase J long-tail** — Player rig polish, group/fellowship UI, trade
  window, salvage/tinker UI, house ownership, society UI, dev-mode tools.
- **L.1g** — Animation polish + conformance.
- Final visual + audio polish pass against ISSUES.md chronic backlog.

**What "M7 lands" looks like:** v1.0. Ship.

---

## Estimated timeline

| Milestone | Effort | Cumulative |
|---|---|---|
| M0 | DONE | DONE |
| M1 | ~4–6 wk | ~5 wk |
| M2 | ~6–10 wk | ~13 wk |
| M3 | ~3–4 wk | ~17 wk |
| M4 | ~6–10 wk | ~25 wk |
| M5 | ~4–8 wk (parallel) | overlaps M3/M4 |
| M6 | ~4 wk | ~29 wk |
| M7 | open-ended | v1.0 |

**Roughly 9–12 months of focused solo work from 2026-05-12 to v1.0.** That's
honest for an open-source project of this scale. The biggest single rock is
M2 (combat math + animations + inventory panels lining up); M5 can be
chipped at in parallel by subagents while you drive M3/M4.

---

## What this document is **not**

- **Not a release schedule.** Internal morale + scope layer only. If acdream
  goes public-alpha at some point, that's a separate decision built on top
  of one of these milestones.
- **Not immutable.** When reality and the milestones diverge, update the
  milestones in the same session you discover the divergence. Same rule as
  the roadmap.
- **Not a replacement for the roadmap.** Phases are still where the
  implementation details live. This doc is the orientation layer above them.
- **Not granular enough for daily work.** Daily work happens at the phase /
  sub-phase / commit level. The milestone is the multi-week target you're
  aiming at.
