I will give my opinion on this. This opinion is based on experience and expectations.
The playerbase of blocktopia will not be able to live with the PvP in their SMP server unless radical changes are brought upon.
Having played in this community for a while, I have seen many SMP servers deal with PvP. The PvPrs and builders always have a heated discussion with each other. While the builders outlast the PvPrs, mostly because the PvPrs get hated for no logical or fair reason, they still do tend to win at least something in the end. Primordia had PvP except for safezones. Stealing was still allowed and your chest had to be accessible at any times.
These are the arguments I will use.
1a.
Anger and rage is generated from people having their stuff stolen, I too was guilty of this fact.
2a.
Dying and losing your inventory is always annoying.
2b.
Because you get punished for showing rage to someone, it's either being pent up or vented behind the scene.
2c.
This resulted into bans, which lead to behind the scenes discussions about it.
3a.
The staff have not used an effective way to fight this problem.
4a.
Some people lack the required equipment to have an equal chance at fighting. This includes hardware as well as in-game items and groups/relations.
5a.
An arms race is unavoidable with enchanting around the corner.
6a.
PvP logging is unavoidable at the moment.
7a.
Being a non-profit community, you get a smaller player base than a profit community.
7b.
A smaller player base results into reoccurring arguments.
1a. Anger and rage is generated from people having their stuff stolen. This argument is based on the values. While a select amount of people, enough to count on one hand, is able to control themselves enough to keep it civil, a far larger amount of people is not able to control this. If you got robbed, you could do nothing about it. You can hopefully remember when you called over a staff member to check for grief or anything illegal in the hopes of you getting your items back. I've seen it happen countless times. In all cases, only 20% was actually illegal.
2a. Dying and losing your inventory is always annoying. This is a common fact. Losing progress if it is not needed or your own fault is always annoying. You die, you have to return to get your stuff. You cannot log off and forget about it, because your stuff will be gone. If you get killed by a player, your stuff is already gone. You can log off, you can rage at yourself and open up your steam chat window and starts trash talking about Danni who killed you and took your golden apples. No one can prevent you from doing that, because no one is authorized to do so. Blocktopia cannot and never will be able to check Steam to see if you've done this, blocktopia can only expect that you do not do this.
2b. As said before: Blocktopia has a low swearing policy. Calling someone an asshole will grant you a 'warning' whether that is systematic or verbal. This is very well known within the community. Players log of and talk to other people on third party programs, such as steam, about this instead. Blocktopia cannot control and check Steam, as said before, and can only expect that this does not happen. This is, in my opinion, a large problem within the community.
2c. And sometimes they do not use third party programs to vent. There has been bans based on rage generated by being robbed. When you get robbed you could have a hard time controlling your vocabulary and it is not uncommon to start swearing uncontrollably. Blocktopia has a very low swearing tolerance policy. You cannot swear too much. Saying "fucking asshole" will get you banned almost instantly.
3a. Argument 1a and 2c lead to staff getting anxious. It's very natural that these are reoccurring problems. The game goes on, rules keep getting broken. However, what I have noticed is that the staff team has always decided to back out of PvP. Slowly but clearly PvP would vanish more and more. At first there was an entire world dedicated to PvP, then there was safezones to protect you from PvP. Eventually there were PvP zones or PvP weekends. I think that this is a useless way of fighting the problem, as you're giving in to one group.
4a. Some people simply lack the required equipment. Your minecraft lags because you have an old PC. You do not have super enchanted gear. You do not have groups of people to help you. You can counter this yourself, blocktopia cannot counter it for you, but blocktopia feels obliged to help you whenever you can and will make it harder to reach god-tier enchantments. Factions were an implementation that helps you be part of a group, even if you have no friends in Blocktopia at all.
5a. As stated in argument 4a: not everyone can keep up with the arms race. Grinding experience is boring and I'd rather not do it but it is unavoidable in an all out PvP world. If you want to be the best PvPer, you will have to use the best gear to keep up with the rest. If I grind hours long and get great gear, people will have to do the same to keep up with me. We create an unrealistic sense of PvP because only few of us have the ambition to grind for hours. Some of us do not have the time to do this, even if we wanted to.
6a. PvP logging is unavoidable. You log off, there's an NPC left in your place. There's a reason that it is against the rules, and that is because it still happens. The plugin won't stop players from logging out and while it does serve its purpose in most cases, there's still cases where this does not help.
7a. Being a non-profit community, you get a smaller player base than a profit community. Other communities can offer you benefits for donating. Unlimited creative mode, spawning of items, god tier armor et cetera. Blocktopia is a non-profit community. They do not give you those benefits because they do not wish to rake in loads of money. They want to cover their server costs and then they do not accept additional donations. Communities where you can donate for benefits tend to have a wider player base due to reoccurring fact that those communities tend to get controversy with their reputation. 'Pay2Play' or 'Elitist' are common popularity brands. This turns attention to the community, as it has done with Miley Cyrus and her 'Wrecking ball' performance. It's not bad to try it, so people give the server a chance. Profit communities allow growth because they get money that they can invest. Paying coders $150 to update or code new servers that can only be played in that community (think of Annihilation! in Shotbow) draw players to that community. Non-profit communities are usually made for friends and fun, and they will have a hard time growing unless the owner decides to pump a lot of money into it.
7b. A smaller player base results into reoccurring arguments. This is not entirely true, so this argument can be seen as a fallacy. I have noticed that players use the same arguments to defend their standpoint. "PvP is bad because it makes people angry." "PvP isn't bad because there's no reason to get angry." Reoccurring arguments like these are not useful as they weigh nothing compared to the actual problem. There is reasons to get angry, there is reasons why PvP is good.
My conclusion is: The playerbase of blocktopia will not be able to live with the PvP in their SMP server unless radical changes are brought upon. Blocktopia cannot prevent people from using third party programs to gossip or argue. People cannot stand losing, especially not when you lose a whole lot of progress. Staff tend to dim down on PvP in the hopes that it will settle itself. Advantages because you are wealthier or have more time to spend result in 'unfair' arms races. Situations that make PvP bad, such as PvP logging, can only be dealt with by staff. And being a non-profit community, blocktopia has less space to grow and a smaller playerbase.
