yeah there needs to be. Although if you don't like mobs, you can set up a huge cactus wall
melons are the only fully automatic farmable and buildable block available
snow blocks can be made at an insanely fast rate (think 2 blocks/ second) and are super-easy to acquire with a snowgolem.
it's mostly a no mod server, but if it's little things, like chest carts being able to travel long distances, books being able to be read, snowballs doing 1/2 heart damage, etc, bla probably will be fine with them. sometimes