My brother is in Iraq and we skype to keep in touch. Unfortunately sometimes there isn't a whole lot to talk about and to be able to talk or video chat while doing foldit puzzles would be cool. Just a thought.
Secondly, I know that Playstation 3 has 'Folding At Home' but to release this game on the PSN as free game (or even Xbox) might increase the user base exponentially just as 'Folding At Home' did for its creators.
Wheres the problem with running foldit and a (vodeo)chat client at the same time? I surf forums sometimes while wiggling.
(PS3&Co: That is a special case even in legalities. Normally people have to pay a lot of money to be allowed to have their games run on these. Then there is the update and online-issue.
Consoles are basically DRM-computers. That brings a lot of problems.)
On the first point I understand what you are saying, but both suggestions were aimed at bringing the app to a wider audience. Putting something in the Skype add-in store might get a few more users and an integrated voice/video might be nice for collaboration.
On the second point, there is precedence for companies like Sony to adopt and push projects such as this. The PS3's graphic capabilities are far superior than most computers. (see http://folding.stanford.edu/English/FAQ-PS3)
I, like most people don't like to leave my PS3 on for indeterminable hours to run the Folding@home simulations. A game such as this one could run on a fraction of the processing power while the rest was used to run background simulations. By enticing gamers with the game you not only grow the base of users but acquire greater distributed processing capacity for simulations.
Anyways, just a thought.
Well, I don't want to sound like I'm belittling the ideas, but I would like to address both ideas…
The skype add in seems a bit unnecessary, since you could just run skype alongside the game. I know that some games have added voice features such as skype, however for the most part, they just lead for a means to abuse yet another form of communication, and instead of people chatting in a friendly open environment, you tend to get one jerkoff playing music and upsetting everyone else. Since this game does not have direct person to person messaging, it does have merits as an additional form of communication, however given that it can be simply run alongside foldit, I think that there are more important issues and advancements for the developers to focus on at this time. Maybe after the game is fully developed it could be suggested again.
As far as the PS3 port of the game, the way that a PS3 processes data is vastly different from how a computer handles the code. Thus it would require a complete re-write of the game from the ground up. Programs like Folding@Home can be ported because they have stable code which does not change often, and which has a fairly narrow scope of processes which are performed. For an evolving game like Foldit, the amount of time spent updating a completely separate set of code to mirror changes in both programs would place a considerable strain on the developers. Also because PS3's use cell processors, they have a very limited set of instructions which can be utilized for development. Which means that it may not even be technically feasible, based on what kinds of functions are required to port a game such as this to that platform. Also, Foldit utilizes outside code to perform some of the functions within the game, even something simple like connecting to IRC chat to communicate in the chat window like in the PC version may need to be completely written from the ground up for a PS3. Therefore I think that this too, while it would be a valuable means to achieve access to a new target audience, is something which the game is not, and perhaps may never be ready for.
Thank you, Pletsch. We are interested in the second idea anyway, the first idea we've never considered, so I'll simply mark this as a low-priority, but open suggestion.
closed, resolved, implemented or no votes, comments since 2009