For those wondering, no, it doesn't affect the actual hitbox of the player. You can still PvP normally. It's all visual.
Fun fact: Player hitboxes render incorrectly from 1.4.3 to 14w06a (1.8 snapshot)
With the introduction of Minecraft Java 1.4.3, they added the F3+B functionality to view all the hitboxes on entities. However, it wasn't perfect. The player hitbox renders too high. This can pose a problem for my main instance as well, as it is within this version range.
Even around 1.7, the visuals for the hitboxes changed, but the player hitbox was still centered too high.
The bug was eventually fixed in snapshot 14w06b. Excuse the Steve skin in this screenshot.
Relevant Minecraft bug report: https://bugs.mojang.com/browse/MC-4077
Current status of my Minecraft 1.5.2 SMP
Here are some other perspectives!
The one with the funny mouse logo. (XFce)
I tend to like the survival experience for its process most of the time, but I go get when things seem daunting, which may prevent me from doing something. This is part of the reason why I HEAVILY prefer SMP over SSP; I love the teamwork involved!
No, this isn't running 1.15. This is 1.5, but as for how it is, I very much like this update and is the one I usually play. Definitely has most of everything I need.
Mauzymice cat built in 1.5.2 Survival
People in my Discord server really like this little guy so a few of us built him! I found that snow was the easiest white block to get since you can gather snowballs very quickly using a snow golem trapped in a one-block space. This allowed us to get the materials needed in about an hour.
Some other screenshots:
A progress report screenshot I took. The schematic file also appears here, which we used as a reference.
Sunrise shot. Looks awesome, especially since I had no shaders on!
The second screenshot I took upon completion; the first was at night.