Overwatch League, Questions??

[rush_tech]

Hi,

Do\have any of you setup overwatch in school. I've never played it but I believe it runs on battlenet? How is it payed for licensed? Do the install files download through battlenet? How do updates work? I'm assuming there will be some URL's\ports that need whitelisting. So many questions. Any help would be greatly appreciated

 

Thanks in advance

[Garacesh]

I'd imagine that if you were allowed, you'd have to personally contact Blizzard for some kind of special accounts. I'd imagine that they do some kind of tournament/net café style of account you could apply for?

If not that, then each kid needs their own personal account because the base T&C's absolutely do not allow for shared accounts under no uncertain terms.

 

ii. When you create or update an Account, you must:

 

1. provide Blizzard with accurate and up to date information that is personal to you, such as your name, address, phone number, and email address.

[...]

2. select a unique username and password (collectively referred to hereunder as “Login Information”). You may not use your real name as the password for the Account, and you cannot share the Account or the Login Information with anyone, unless the terms of this Agreement allow it.

[...]

iv. Please take a few moments to review Blizzard’s Account Security information here. You must maintain the confidentiality of the Login Information, as you are responsible for all uses of the Login Information and the Account, including purchases, whether or not authorized by you.

ii. You may use the Platform for your personal and non-commercial entertainment purposes only, unless specifically allowed under the terms of this Agreement.

 

So the school couldn't buy the game x amount of times and share the accounts.

Which means each kid is also gonna have to fork out the cash themselves, which seems a bit crappy to ask the parents to do. I'd imagine most parents to expect that if the school was going to run a club, the school would provide the equipment, no?

I'd also suggest you don't want to buy the kids a copy on their personal accounts with the school card. There's probably some real iffy rules surrounding that one that could raise a few eyebrows.

Edited May 18, 2021 by Garacesh

[free780]

I've set it up in a College.

It required ports being unblocked for outbound traffic. We let the lecturer have local admin to manually install and keep it up to date. Students had to setup their own accounts for battle.net. We had a generic account for login which only the lecturer knew the password. We tied down battle.net with applocker.

It's never designed for use in a managed network so a bit of a bodge.

[SayLHP]

As an ex-Blizzard employee thought I would weigh-in, each pupil would need their own battle.net account and Overwatch purchased and tied to the account.

 

As someone has already pointed out, accounts cannot be shared between pupils.

 

Bit of information on ports: https://www.nasef.org/compete/overwatch-it-help-page/

 

There's also this page for eSports and schools:

https://britishesports.org/news/overwatch-and-rocket-league-added-to-british-esports-championships-as-team-registration-officially-opens/

[rush_tech]

Thanks for the replies guys, some info the get going. I'm not sure about giving the teacher local admin rights over the PC.

[Garacesh]

Isn't the issue with installers not that they need to be explicitly a localadmin, but that non-administrative users don't have permission over %ProgramFiles% and other such directories?

Maybe you could manually install the software yourself, and give specific members of staff control over %ProgramFiles%\Overwatch or wherever it installs? Could you use something like ProcMon to see what files it's dumping where?

Worth trying with a test account, perhaps? You'd have to wait until Blizzard release an update though.

Edited May 19, 2021 by Garacesh