(Picture with my sister on it because I didn't have anything else at hand...)

Yes, I know it isn't really beach season (unless you're on the Southern hemisphere or in some subtropic or tropic area). But on the other hand, if it's too cold to go to a real beach, there are plenty of virtual beaches where it isn't too cold.

Now, what I'd like to talk with you, the community, about is: What makes a good beach? What does a good beach need in your opinion?

Generally, from my point of view, a beach should be more than just eyecandy on a sim that serves another purpose (freebie shops, event location, welcome landing, whatever). A beach should serve its own purpose, namely the same purpose real-life beaches serve. And that purpose shouldn't only be sex either.

So there are certain things I expect from a beach. Fair warning ahead: I'm biased because I grew up between a whole lot of nice beaches, and I've been to quite a number.


First of all: It should be possible to go into the water. Possible, credibly so and not hazardous. The sand should slope into the water gently so you can actually walk out into the sea (or lake or whatever) just like you usually can in real life. This is such a basic demand that you may wonder why I mention it.

Well, in many cases, this isn't possible at all. Either you have textured ground which drops off steeply from one metre above the water surface to way below. Sand can't do that, and it renders the number one key element of a beach useless.

Or you have a beach made of mesh sections. But these pieces of mesh either only barely lead into the water, or the water-side edge lies on top of the water surface, and all that washes over them are the waves. You can't even walk into ankle-deep water without falling off the edge and seeing the large hollow underneath the mesh beach pieces. I guess this is often a case of a beach built by someone who spends so much time flying above their own sim that they've literally never set a single foot on their own beach.

So, either way, whether or not you build your beach out of mesh: Please let the sea ground slope away from the beach gently.

This, by the way, is also why springboards on beaches are non-sense. Unless you place them on piers where the water is deep enough.


Speaking of swimming: Swim rezzers.

They come either as a single white-and-blue life-saver (where you have to explain how a life-saver floating in the surf stays in place) or as two life-savers on a wooden pole (the more elegant solution). In case you don't know them: What they do when you click on them is rez another life-saver. You sit on it, it disappears, and you assume a swimming position, complete with swimming animations. You can steer yourself while swimming. You can swim like you walk, only that you swim. If you stand back up, the life-saver reappears. If you wait for long enough, it deletes itself. One swim rezzer can rez multiple of these life-savers.

Why do I deem them important? Because you may want to actually swim. And not stand in the water. Because that's what you do on beaches (in case you don't know because you've never been to one).

Some of you may confuse them with those old-style swim balls. They're basically poseballs for swimming: You sit on them, and you swim back and forth, back and forth, and you can't control where you swim. But seriously, 2011 called, it wants its OpenSim 0.7.3 tech level back. Poseballs may still have their places, but this isn't one anymore.


Now comes something that may not be interesting unless you "play it real" like me: What do you do after you've been in the water? Lay down on a lounger or a towel?

Nope.

When I was a kid, we were taught by the adults to take off our wet swimwear and slip into something dry ASAP. Real life isn't Hollywood where your swim trunks or your swimsuit is dry the instance you come out of the water (or after the next cut). Nope, it's wet and clingy and getting cold, no matter how hot the weather is. So I'd like to have a chance to do that on a virtual beach as well.

Now, either the sim is Adult-rated which usually (but sadly not all of the time) means that nudity is allowed. Or it's Moderate-rated, and nudity is allowed (but sex isn't), whether or not it's mentioned. Or you don't really "play it real" (layer clothes: replace your swimwear directly with something new; mesh: put on your new swimwear, wear two sets clipping through each other for a few seconds, then take off your old swimwear, or replace one full swimwear outfit with another one in one go).

Or you do "play it real", but you can't be naked in public, so you have to hide. The same goes for when you arrive on a beach in street clothes with no swimwear underneath, by the way.

Ideally, the beach provides changing cabins (with scripted doors, not just static decorational dummies!). If not, there should be something that you can go behind to change. This something should be a) placed in such a way and large enough that it's hard to look behind it (camming or intentionally walking in notwithstanding), b) large and opaque enough that it actually covers you up (knee-high shrubbery isn't) and c) arranged in such a way that you can easily walk behind it and back out (a 100-metre-long hedge isn't; a long dune is if it's tall enough because you can walk over it).


As for other things, there should be a difference between "natural" beaches and other beaches.

If a beach is "natural", there shouldn't be any more facilities. Maybe a few beach towels for convenience (and plants to change behind unless you're allowed to be naked), or rezzing should be allowed so that people can place their own towels.

Everything else should be left to beaches which are officially run by someone, but then it should be there. Loungers. Beach showers or even full facilities. Changing cabins if necessary (see above). A bar or two (a halfway credible beach would have more swim rezzers than beach bars, though). Ideally a place to get something to eat. Lifeguard chairs. (The latter three work even better with appropriately-dressed NPCs giving life to them.) Shops and a party area with a dance floor and a permanently installed DJ set don't belong on "natural" beaches either.

On the one hand, a fully stocked beach bar one some remote secluded beach island that doesn't even have a landing pier doesn't make any sense. On the other hand, a beach that's otherwise so fully equipped as though it's right in front of a resort hotel is kind of incomplete if you can't get anything to drink.


A few more things concerning the above: Please, dear beach builders, if you place down furniture such as loungers or towels, sit on them. Can you sit on them properly? If you can't, do away with them because they're just a waste of space and prim capacity. It doesn't matter if you have never sat down on furniture, and you never will. Other people do, believe it or not, they do.

As an extra precaution: If the sim isn't Adult-rated, and the furniture has a menu, look at it. If there's anything sex-related, either replace the furniture with something without sex animations or edit them out.

Also, inflatable, floating items only make sense in pools. If you place a pool floater or a bouncy island in the surf in real life, it will be carried away unless you anchor it very thoroughly. And none of the floating items on the Hypergrid looks like it's anchored at all. So no floaties in the ocean surf.


Last but not least: The "dress code" on the beach (and in the surrounding areas) should be clear, and visitors should be informed about it both in-world and on OSW if the sim is entered there. Textile? Clothing optional? Nude? It's nigh-impossible to safely assume from the rating (or from the culture wherever the builder lives). Adult may mean a full-blown nudist "piggy beach" of which there are dozens just as well as a textile beach on a sim that allows nudity only in one small and well-concealed nook with one piece of sex furniture. And even Moderate may or may not allow for nudity.