Hardknock Academy

I had the opportunity to visit Marianne McCann's school some time back, and it was a great experience. The writeup on the school was just published, and I'm happy to be able to point you folks to it for your enjoyment this afternoon.

SL Things To Do: Hardknock Academy
http://tinyurl.com/5k2za7

Thanks to Marianne for the extra photos she provided.

Great write up Ghosty.

Jes to clarify - it's not *my* school, it is run by Jill Caldera and Gattz Gilman. I jes attend there.

Great write up, too. I'll hafta eat a crayon in your honor, Ghosty!

That is cool wish when I was toddler in SL I had known about it.

It looks fun - it's a rather unfortunate choice of name though ("School of Hard Knocks" is not generally something you send young children to, and in SL there are other RP sims with "Hard" in the name that, um, are also not suitable for children)

It also has the usual problems with closed membership RP sims (and, I expect, the usual hypocrisy of having an open mall but closed RP), but I suppose that's inevitable in this kind of environment as it'd be a huge grief target otherwise.

Never throught about that other "hard" meaning. I always forget about thyose, as it's not part of my SL experience. The play on "School of Hard Knocks" was deliberate though, and came from HardKnock founder, Cricket Nelson waaaaaaaay back in September of 2006.



It's closed both because of the griefers, and because they have a regular enrollment. Folks pay for their time there, get assigned to classes, and all that. The enrollment and rent from the stores (of which I have one) is, I assume, what keeps the sim afloat.

I understand that (although paid for RP tends to induce a lot of drama, but I suppose it's probably less of a problem in a school environment).

I just have a pet hate of closed RP sims with open malls - not only is it instantly an SLGroan (and we don't need any more of them!) but it strongly sends the message that "we want your money but not you".

I've heard of some over time, but not a huge huge amount. I imagine the school's owners woudl know of more.



To the best of my knowledge, HKA is a renter of property in that sim, which is owned by a third party. The stores are a separate thing.

Ive known HK a long time, camp, school and always a fun time !! Of course some can twist words, claim things arent what they seem, its called paranoia I would reccomend HK to any child av who truly wants to live a simpler SL.

What Toy said.

no i would think the drama would make it more realist like in a school scean

I dunno, I didn't know what school drama was until the 7th grade. :/

Well, what I mean is that in any paid-for RP that involves any conflict, there will inevitably come a time when somebody says that if they lose a particular conflict, the whole point of them being in the RP will be lost for them, and thus they will want their money back. It would be unreasonable if there weren't some RPGs (not in SL) explicitly designed to con people out of money that way..

I can't speak for the school, but if I were running a similar type of sim, the money would be for the tier of the sim, not the RP itself. And, you betchum, I'd have a 'no refund' policy like everywhere else in SL. And, since I'm looking for people who are serious about the RP, a trial period and perhaps a reference if possible.

Again, I'm not talking about the school. But I ran a very large RP club some years ago in NY, and this is exactly how it worked - you forked up some money, you were expected to attend meetings, you were expected not to be a douchbag and if you seemed welcome wiht the group after a month, you were in and no refund later. It worked wonderfully for three years. We sold lots of outside stuff to raise funds for events, too. There's nothing wrong with it. I'd do it exactly like that again.

Well, but for the customer the money would be for the RP. And as I say, it's largely because some online RPs are basically organised to trick people this way. It's unlikely to happen in a small group where people know each other.

That said, if this IS a small group social thing I don't think it really counts as "something to do in SL" anymore than you'd put someone's weekly poker game with their friends at their house, in a tourist guide for their city!

It's definitely bigger than "small social group thing." I think it was initally, back in 2006 or so. Now, it's so much larger, with classes throughout the day an stuff.

Adding another article that came out this week. More general about kid avvies, instead of being jes about HKA:

http://www.metaverse-tribune.com/tribune_general/second_life/1722.html

Mari