Back about 15 years ago I had a lot of fun playing a private pirate UO server with full PvP, but the reason it worked was that the faction-based PvP was established as the core focus of the game from the get go. Everyone went in understanding that large scale faction-vs-faction warfare was going to happen so people were already prepared for getting killed, looted, etc. And there was relatively little griefing bc most of the people there wanted challenging combat and battles between large groups of coordinated players. While the rules were the "old days" pvp and full loot the differing emphasis left no real place for griefers, and an overall fairly polite environment outside some friendly smack talk.

The difference between players who want interesting, challenging conflict and players who want to wield power over others and cause suffering is night and day.

Planetside 2 is notable for being a unique mmofps on a vast scale.battles regularly involve hundreds of players from each of the three factions, and that's after the player population has dropped dramatically over the last ten years.