Yes, many people do *edited* and moan about the awp, but the then people *edited* and moan about everything. “OMG that guy flashed me!”, “No fair, He shot me with a deagle from 30 feet away!” “That guy just poped out and shotgunned 3 of us!” etc etc etc. Somehow the awp just got set up as the scapegoat for all this. I suspect that it got this status because it is unforgiving of mistakes with its incredibly slow rate of fire and complete lack of close in combat ability. It is not a friendly weapon the first time you pick it up. Almost every other gun can at the very least be sprayed with a chance to kill. Compared to the awp, even the Scout is capable of a “spray” altough i use that term losely here.
The awp often gets refered to as the golden gun of CS, and with good reason. For any of yall who don’t know or don’t remember the Golden Gun was a pistol used by an assasin in a james bond film. It only had one bullet, but it was a very powerful bullet, almost like a tiny frag gernade. The assasin who used it was known to never miss, which is why he needed only one bullet.
It is the same concept with the awp. Lets say you have a chance to kill a foe. With a p90, your chance is spread out over the length of your spray, lasting until one of you dies or escapes. The same applies to all the other guns. Even the scout is similar because despite its bolt action the time between bullets it barley more than a second or two and a player is capable of firing multiple times at a single foe. The awp is diffrent, its bolt is slightly slower. The player wielding it is slowed by its wieght. A reload takes ages. With the awp, the player has taken all of thier chance to slay thier foe, and put it into a single shot. The same player may well kill you with the awp, or a colt, or an ak, or a p90. They may even kill you without you managing to hit them back. But that dosen’t annoy people as much as the awp. The reason is simple. The person has said, “I bet I can kill my opponet with a single bullet.” For someone new to the awp, the chance of them pulling it off seems near impossible, while those skilled with the awp can manage it quite frequently.
Because of this the awp has turned into some kind of elite weapon in the minds of many. A weapon beyond the powers of mere mortals, and only a select few can use such a weapon without being driven insane. I admit, no one ever says that, but if you watch the conversations in servers about the awp, thats pretty much what they say.
The awp is a weapon that requires more skill than any other weapon to be used well. Any moron can get a kill or two with an awp, by killling the other morons, but to kill many players or to kill good players requires either a great deal of luck, skill or a combination of both. However! Just as the AWP requires a great deal of skill, if you have that skill it rewards you for it proportionaly. I can understand why people would not like the awp, it allows a player to condence an entire fight into a fraction of a second, but if you understand the awp, then you can deal with that and come out of it alive.
My point is, the AWP is a very diffrent weapon, and because it is diffrent it is singled out, but instead of simply tossing it out like last week’s garbage give it a chance to prove itself.
I understand that full un-restriction is not likley to happen, but allowing just one or two AWPs per team seems like a balanced way to go about it. That way there is no real reason for compliant, since it is only one AWP, and if you truly despise them, you can simply not go near it. And that will allow the AWP to continue to function as a part of the entire game, keeping the balance of weapons that has made Counter Strike so popular throughtout the years.
~Killty-Chan