> Obviously the resolution, frame rate, and software integration in metaverse will be somewhat better than SL; aside from that, can anyone tell me the difference between modern metaverse and SL, also how does that difference translate into profitable sales?
Most of the modern metaverses are worse than Second Life. Their big advantages were VR, browser and mobile clients. Second Life is getting most of those features now.
Their dev team finally got out of "can't do" mode.
(That's client side. Server side, they still have trouble fixing long-standing bugs.)
They hired some good game devs, and graphics started to get better.
* Frame rates have increased substantially.
There's more multi-threading in the clients now, and the servers have
been upgraded to better AWS instances. Still OpenGL,
but work is going on to use Vulkan.
* Graphics realism has increased, again. Physically based rendering
with high dynamic range lighting is in test. Not subsurface scattering,
though, so skin still looks plastic under some lighting. Graphics
realism is becoming comparable to GTA-V, but not Red Dead Redemption.
* There's a mobile viewer in test. Uses Unity as the graphics engine.[1]
* Full body tracking is in test, and being demoed. It's striking to see
how someone rigged for full tracking dominates a meeting.
Second Life may end up being the metaverse, after everybody else fails.
It's one of the very few systems with a large, continuous world, one
about the size of greater Los Angeles.
Facebook failed to deliver much, the NFT guys delivered even less, and
the people who announced and didn't ship probably never will.
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1tjRlVwlAXA