acdream/docs/research/2026-08-16-campaign-cc-test-script.md

# Campaign CC connected-gate test script

**Status: the campaign is CODE-COMPLETE (CC1-CC7) and this script is its
connected-gate contract.** Every step below is the user's own eyes on the
running client — nothing here was run automatically. **No automated live
character creation has been run against ACE** (see §CC-Not-Automated) —
the first LIVE create is deliberately left to this gate.

This script covers TWO ways to reach the chargen screen: the real launcher
flow (Campaign LA's product path) and the developer shortcut
(`ACDREAM_RETAIL_UI=1` + `ACDREAM_OPEN_CHARGEN=1`, still available and still
useful for a fast create-only iteration loop). Both land on the exact same
screen and Runtime owner — there is no second code path being tested.

Local ACE connection details (per `CLAUDE.md`): host `127.0.0.1`, port
`9000`, account `testaccount` / `testpassword`. Use a FRESH character name
per attempt (ACE does not forget names within a session) — `CC-<yourinitials>-<n>`
is a good scheme, e.g. `CCAB1`, `CCAB2`.

---

## §CC1 — reaching the screen

### Path A — the launcher (product path)

1. Launch `AcDream.Launcher` (already installed/updated per Campaign LA's
   own gates — this script does not re-run first-run setup or the update
   flow; see `docs/research/2026-08-14-campaign-la-test-script.md` if either
   is in question).
2. Open **Check for updates**. Confirm it reports the client already
   current (no install prompt) — Campaign LA's own gates already proved the
   install/update mechanics; this step just confirms nothing is stale
   before the character-creation gate.
3. Confirm (or create) a profile pointed at `127.0.0.1:9000`,
   `testaccount` / `testpassword`.
4. Click **GUI — character select**. The retail character-management
   screen (`gmCharacterManagementUI`) opens — the flat character list, World
   name, Enter/Delete/Restore buttons, and the **Create** button.

### Path B — the developer shortcut

```powershell
$env:ACDREAM_DAT_DIR   = "$env:USERPROFILE\Documents\Asheron's Call"
$env:ACDREAM_RETAIL_UI = "1"
$env:ACDREAM_LIVE      = "1"
$env:ACDREAM_TEST_HOST = "127.0.0.1"
$env:ACDREAM_TEST_PORT = "9000"
$env:ACDREAM_TEST_USER = "testaccount"
$env:ACDREAM_TEST_PASS = "testpassword"
dotnet run --project src\AcDream.App\AcDream.App.csproj --no-build -c Release
```

Confirm the SAME character-management screen appears. `ACDREAM_OPEN_CHARGEN=1`
(add it to the block above) is the CC4-era interim seam that opens the
chargen screen directly on startup, skipping the Create click — still
useful for a fast create-only loop, but Path A/B above is now the REAL path
and should be exercised at least once per gate.

### The Create button

1. With at least one free character slot (roster count below the account's
   allowed slot count — most test accounts have several free slots),
   confirm **Create** is ENABLED (not greyed out).
2. **Click Create.** The chargen screen (`gmCharGenMainUI`) opens directly
   on the **Heritage** page — no confirmation, no loading screen. The
   character-management screen you were just on is not closed or hidden;
   it simply sits behind the new screen (this matters for the Exit step
   below).
3. **If your account's roster is completely full** (rare on a fresh test
   account — every slot occupied), confirm Create is instead GREYED OUT
   and does nothing when clicked. This is retail's own gate
   (`gmCharacterManagementUI::UpdateButtons`) — a full roster ghosts
   Create exactly like Enter/Delete grey out for an unselected row.
   **A fresh test account is unlikely to be full on its own** (ACE's
   default `max_chars_per_account` is 11) — force this state instead of
   waiting for it:
   1. From the ACE server console (or a GM-privileged in-game `@` command),
      run `@modifylong max_chars_per_account 2` to lower the ceiling below
      your current roster count.
   2. Reconnect (a fresh `CharacterList` only arrives on a new connection —
      the client does not re-fetch it live) and confirm Create is now
      GREYED OUT.
   3. Restore the default afterward: `@modifylong max_chars_per_account 11`,
      then reconnect again and confirm Create is enabled once more.
   4. **The count includes pending-delete (greyed) characters** — a
      character mid-deletion still occupies a roster slot both in ACE's
      `GameMessageCharacterList` and in acdream's own gate
      (`RuntimeCharacterSelectionState.BuildButtons`'s
      `_entries.Length < _slotCount`, which counts every roster entry
      regardless of pending-delete state) — matching retail's own
      `RebuildCharacterList`, which walks the same full set. If you have a
      pending-delete character sitting around, it still counts toward the
      ceiling above.

### Leaving the screen (Back-at-Heritage and Exit)

1. On the **Heritage** page (the first page), click **Back**. Confirm a
   confirmation dialog appears asking whether to leave character creation
   (same text/shape as the Exit button below — Back-at-Heritage and Exit
   share retail's one `DoExit` confirmation).
2. Click **Exit** (top of the screen, available on every page). Confirm
   the SAME confirmation dialog appears.
3. **Confirm the dialog (accept).** The chargen screen closes. You are back
   at the character-management screen you started from — roster, World
   name, and any prior selection are exactly as you left them (character
   management was never hidden, so there is nothing to "restore").
4. Click **Cancel** on a repeat Exit attempt instead — confirm the dialog
   closes and chargen stays open, untouched.

### What to report for §CC1

- Create's enabled/greyed state matching the free-slot count you actually
  have.
- Whether clicking Create opens chargen with no lag/flash/black frame.
- Whether returning from Exit shows the character list exactly as it was
  (no re-flicker, no lost highlight, no stale World name).

---

## §CC2 — the six-page create flow

**The screen does NOT open blank.** `gmCharGenMainUI`'s own constructor
rolls a full random character (heritage, gender, appearance, clothing,
template, start area) before the Heritage page ever draws — acdream ports
this faithfully (AP-214, retired). **Expected retail quirk: the gender
shown on the Appearance page is the FLIP of the roll** — the Appearance
page's own init code reads the just-rolled gender and immediately swaps it
to the opposite one. If you open chargen and see (say) a female Aluvian
with the Appearance page showing "Male" selected, that is CORRECT, not a
bug — do not report it.

### Heritage page

1. Confirm one of the 13 heritage buttons is already highlighted (the
   opening roll) — Human heritages (Aluvian/Gharu'ndim/Sho/Viamontian),
   Tumerok, Gearknight, Lugian, Empyrean, Penumbraen, Shadowbound, Undead,
   Olthoi, and OlthoiAcid should all be selectable and each show its own
   description text (starting skills, bonus-skills paragraph where retail
   has one — Lugian/Olthoi/OlthoiAcid have none, that's retail-correct).
2. Click **Random**. Confirm the highlighted heritage changes to a
   uniformly-picked one of the 13 — this is AP-212's documented
   approximation (retail's own Heritage-page Random rolls with retail's own
   distribution; acdream picks uniformly over every installed heritage).
   A uniform pick over 13 can land back on the heritage you already have —
   click a few times if the first click looks like a no-op; occasional
   repeats are expected, not a bug. Not a bug to report unless the button
   does nothing or crashes across several clicks.
3. Select **Olthoi** or **OlthoiAcid**. Confirm the Profession, Skills, and
   Town tabs are hidden (Olthoi variants skip straight to a fixed Custom
   template with no attribute/skill/town choices) and the screen
   auto-advances past them.

### Profession page

1. Select a NON-Olthoi heritage. Confirm 7 template buttons (Custom + 6
   presets) and 6 attribute sliders (Strength/Endurance/Coordination/
   Quickness/Focus/Self).
2. Drag a slider. Confirm the numeric readout updates live and the
   Available-credits counter decreases/increases correspondingly.
3. Click a preset template (not Custom). Confirm all 6 sliders jump to
   that preset's values and Available credits updates to match.
4. Click **Random**. Confirm heritage/template selection changes (AP-212 —
   uniform pick, not retail's own weighted roll).

### Skills page

1. Confirm ONE flat listbox of skills, each row showing name, current
   level, and train/specialize costs (AP-213 — retail groups these into
   four sorted buckets; acdream's flat list is a presentation
   simplification, not a rules difference — do not report the flat
   ordering as a bug).
2. Click a trainable row. Confirm it advances (Untrained -> Trained ->
   Specialized) and the skill-credits meter decreases; a second click on an
   already-Specialized row does nothing further (no fourth state).
3. Confirm **Random** is disabled/greyed on this page (retail's
   `RandomizeSkills` primitive is unported — AP-212's own documented gap).

### Appearance page

1. Confirm **Face** and **Clothes** sub-tabs, nine spin controls (hair,
   eyes, nose, mouth, skin under Face; headgear, shirt, trousers, footwear
   under Clothes), nine color swatches, a shade scrollbar, zoom/rotate
   buttons, and a live 3D preview playing an idle animation loop.
2. Click a spin's left/right arrow zones. Confirm the selected style index
   advances/retreats and the preview model updates.
3. Click a color swatch. Confirm the swatch shows a highlighted "selected"
   ring/border (AP-215 — acdream's own selection indicator, not retail's
   overlay mechanism; functionally equivalent).
4. Click **Zoom In**. Confirm the preview freezes its pose (idle animation
   stops) and the camera tweens closer over about half a second. Click
   **Zoom Out** — animation resumes, camera tweens back out.
5. Click **Rotate Clockwise**/**Counter-Clockwise**. Confirm the model
   spins continuously at a steady rate (about 3 seconds per full turn);
   clicking the SAME direction again stops it, clicking the OPPOSITE
   direction reverses it.
6. Click **Random** (on either sub-tab). Confirm hair/eyes/nose/mouth/skin
   (Face) or headgear/shirt/trousers/footwear (Clothes) all re-roll
   together — this IS retail's real `RandomizeAppearance`/
   `RandomizeClothing` primitive (CC5 ported it verbatim, not approximated).
7. Select **Gearknight**, **Olthoi**, or **OlthoiAcid** on the Heritage
   page, then return to Appearance. Confirm the Clothes sub-tab and its
   four spins are unreachable, Nose/Mouth spins are hidden, and Eyes'
   arrows are disabled (fixed eyes for these forms).

Known cosmetic gaps on this page — expected, do not report as bugs unless
noticeably worse than described: swatches show static art rather than the
actual color they represent (AP-216); the gradient circle art next to the
swatches never repaints to reflect the current color (AP-217); the four
icon-only spins (hair/eyes/nose/mouth) show a plain number instead of an
icon thumbnail, while the four clothing spins show real names (AP-215/
AP-218); on Olthoi/OlthoiAcid/Gearknight the Skin spin does not slide up to
close the gap left by the hidden Nose/Mouth spins (AP-219); switching
heritage INTO or OUT OF Gearknight does not automatically re-roll
appearance/clothing the way retail does on that exact transition (AP-220);
the currently-selected spin shows no distinct highlighted state versus the
other eight (AP-222 — this is a MEASURED gap in acdream's own art, not yet
attributed to a specific missing asset; report clearly if you can visually
compare with retail here).

**Known session-permanent gap (AP-221) — check the console before
reporting a dead preview.** On an unlucky frame where the DAT/GPU resource
read backing the 3D preview isn't ready at the client's single composition
pass, the Appearance page's zoom/rotate controls can go dead for the rest
of the session (or the Summary page's preview can simply never render),
with no on-screen error — the only evidence is a console line:
`[UI] chargen preview viewport unavailable at composition time...` (or the
Summary-page sibling, `[UI] summary preview viewport unavailable at
composition time...`). If zoom/rotate stop responding or a preview stays
blank, check the console for one of these lines FIRST. If it's there,
restart the client and retry before reporting a bug — this is a known,
already-registered gap, not a new one.

### Town page

1. Confirm four town buttons: Holtburg, Shoushi, Yaraq, Sanamar (not id
   order — that's retail's own literal ordering, ported faithfully), each
   with descriptive text.
2. Click a town. Confirm it highlights and the description text updates.

### Summary page

1. Confirm a listbox showing Profession, Gender, Heritage, and Starting
   Town lines, an "Attributes" header, then Strength/Endurance/
   Coordination/Quickness/Focus/Self/Health/Stamina/Mana/Skill Credits as
   paired rows, then Specialized and Trained skill name lists (retail also
   lists the two Untrained buckets; acdream's Summary omits them —
   AP-224, same class of cut as the Skills page's own AP-213).
2. Confirm a static 3D preview of the character (no zoom/rotate controls
   on this page — retail has none here either).
3. Click the **name field** and type a name. Confirm only letters, spaces,
   apostrophes, and hyphens are accepted (other characters are silently
   rejected keystroke-by-keystroke).
4. Click **Random** on this page. Confirm a confirmation dialog appears
   first ("are you sure you want to randomize?"); confirming it re-rolls
   the ENTIRE character (heritage through name) using retail's real
   `RandomizeCharacter` primitive — the same one the screen-open roll uses.

### What to report for §CC2

- Any page that fails to render a control listed above, or where a control
  visibly does nothing when clicked.
- Anything from the "known cosmetic gaps" list that looks MORE broken than
  described (e.g. a spin that doesn't advance at all, not just a missing
  highlight).
- Any crash, freeze, or console error while navigating pages or the tabs.

---

## §CC3 — Finish and its dialogs

Use a fresh, never-before-used character name for the happy path. For every
scenario below, watch the console/log for `[UI]`/`[CC]`-prefixed lines —
they help distinguish "nothing happened because the click didn't register"
from "the request went out and ACE is thinking about it."

### Happy path

1. Complete a legal character (heritage, gender, template with credits
   fully spent, at least a default set of skills, a town, a fresh name).
2. Click **Finish** on the Summary page. Confirm the screen closes almost
   immediately (no visible "please wait" dialog for a normal accept — ACE's
   Ok reply is fast) and you land DIRECTLY in the world as the new
   character — no return to character management, no fresh character list,
   matching retail's own "log straight in" behavior.
3. If you back out to character management instead (e.g. via a later
   logout), confirm the new character now appears in the roster alongside
   any pre-existing ones, in the correct slot.

### NameInUse (duplicate name)

1. Create a SECOND character using the EXACT name you just used above.
2. Click Finish. Confirm the `ID_Character_Err_NameReserved` dialog appears
   ("that name is in use" / similar text) and you stay on the chargen
   screen — Finish is clickable again afterward.
3. **Expected log noise (register AD-100):** ACE sends the NameInUse
   rejection TWICE for the same request (a real ACE double-send bug, not
   an acdream defect). The FIRST reply drives the dialog above; the SECOND
   logs something like `unexpected CharacterGenerationVerificationResponse`
   in the console. That log line is EXPECTED here — do not report it as an
   error.

### The credit-warning confirm flow

1. Select the **Custom** template on the Profession page (leaves several
   attribute credits unspent) and complete the rest of the character.
2. Click Finish. Confirm a warning dialog appears about unspent attribute
   credits, and Finish does NOT send anything yet.
3. Confirm the dialog. Confirm the request now sends anyway, with the
   unspent credits — this is retail-correct (`DoFinish`'s own confirm-arm
   skips the credit check entirely; ACE accepts an under-spent build).

### The randomize warning flow

Already covered in §CC2's Summary-page step 4 above — confirm the warning
appears BEFORE any randomization happens, and Cancel leaves the character
completely untouched.

### The exit warning flow

Already covered in §CC1's "Leaving the screen" section above.

### NameTooLong

1. On the Summary page, type or paste a name longer than 32 characters and
   commit it (press Enter, or click elsewhere to move focus away from the
   field).
2. Confirm the `ID_CharGen_NameTooLong` dialog appears and the field
   reverts to its previous (shorter) value — the field itself does not cap
   your typing at 32 characters as you go; the rejection only fires on
   commit. That is retail-correct, not a bug.

### Empty name (AP-227, an acdream/retail divergence — expected)

1. On the Summary page, select all the text in the name field and delete
   it entirely, then blur the field (click elsewhere) without typing a
   replacement.
2. Click **Finish**. Confirm the `NoName`/`ID_CharGen_NoNameWarning` dialog
   appears — acdream clears its internal name state the instant the field
   is emptied, so Finish sees an empty name and refuses. **This is NOT what
   retail does**: retail's own commit handler only acts when the field's
   length is greater than 1 (NUL-inclusive, so an empty field's length is
   exactly 1) — an emptied-then-blurred field is a silent no-op in retail,
   and the character's internal name stays whatever it was BEFORE you
   cleared the field, even though the field visually shows empty. A real
   retail client would create the character under that old, uncleared name
   here instead of showing a dialog. Expect acdream's dialog, not retail's
   silent keep-old-name behavior — register AP-227.

### What to report for §CC3

- Whether the happy path truly lands you in-world with no intermediate
  screen.
- The exact dialog text shown for each rejection (useful for a later
  string-table audit even if it looks right).
- Any case where Finish appears to do nothing at all (no dialog, no
  console line, no world entry) — that would be a real regression, not one
  of the documented cosmetic gaps above.

---

## §CC4 — ACE-side landmines (not acdream defects)

- **Heritage-priced skill over-deduction — LATENT, will not fire with the
  installed EoR DAT.** ACE's `PlayerFactory.CreatePlayer` has a real
  overcharge bug when specializing a skill priced by the active heritage's
  own skill list (versus the global skill table). It was measured against
  the installed EoR data and found unreachable — every heritage's one
  priced skill (Arcane Lore) has a heritage NormalCost of 0, which makes
  ACE's overcharge exactly zero. You should NOT be able to trigger a
  `FailedToSpecializeSkill` rejection from a retail-legal build during this
  gate. If you somehow do, that is worth flagging immediately — it would
  mean the installed DAT's costs differ from what was measured.
- **Disabled-Olthoi create -> Pending -> NameDBDown dialog is
  retail-correct.** If your local ACE has Olthoi character creation
  disabled (a server config option), attempting to create an Olthoi/
  OlthoiAcid character will surface the `ID_Character_Err_NameDBDown`
  dialog via a `Pending` response code. This is retail's OWN behavior
  (ACE's `olthoi_play_disabled` branch sends `Pending`, and retail's
  dispatch has no silent branch for it) — not a "the client swallowed my
  request" bug.

---

## §CC-Not-Automated

No automated test in this repository has created a character against a
LIVE ACE server. Every field-shape and response-code assertion in Campaign
CC's test suite runs against a real `WorldSession` and hand-built response
packets (see `tests/AcDream.Runtime.Tests/Session/LiveSessionControllerCharacterCreationTests.cs`)
— the wire bytes and the state machine are proven byte-for-byte, but the
FIRST character ever created against a real, running ACE process is
whatever you create during this gate. Server state (what names exist,
what heritages are enabled, what the account's slot count is) is entirely
yours to observe; this script deliberately does not assume any of it in
advance.