I was going to start a thread, but I noticed this post here, and it seems to be a good thread to put down my thoughts on the matter. As I've said in a previous post, a long time ago I played on a game where non-staff players apped into leadership roles (Faction Leaders/Team Leaders/Major FCs) were also staffers on RP staff, and as such, a liaison between the players and staff in a defacto sense of the word. I recently decided to dust off my old hobby and give it a go as a way to take a break from dealing with teens for a little while. This is what I discovered.
Both games I tried were apocalypse themed, but that's about all they had in common. Both games also have very good staffs, so any criticism to be made is purely from the constructive front.
Game A is a zombie survival game. Having come from the ashes of another zombie game that had died, the staff was trying hard to make sure to drive home the dangers and lack of supplies. There was a +scavenge code in place, but it was quickly determined to be broken and was taken off-line. Then scavenging scenes became staff only plots, then it was left to the player base to determine the path the game was going to take - convoy on or hunker down. Hunker down won, so RP quickly became limited to social and building things up - which was to roll on a project. The other catch was when the staff ran scavenge scenes, it quickly took on what I call the 'Monty Hall Complex'. The players win the scene, they get all these fabulous prizes. The headwiz has been ill, so the game has entered a stalled and stale period where it's the same dredge day in and day out. I've logged in my character to make a roll on a project he's on - one that I tried really hard to RP doing, but eventually just burned out since there was no direction on it. Only the staff alts can vet new people into the complex, and when they're not around, new PCs have had to sit for days to wait for the interview to get into the game play and RP outside of someone bringing them a meal.
Game B is a post-apocalypse sci-fi game. Supplies are thin and there's a war going on on multiple fronts. There /is/ a metaplot that is tightly controlled by the staff, but there are so many other side plots that players can ask to run and do that the main plot can sometimes be overlooked - but most of time, the two blend in perfect harmony. The headwiz does control the major character, but outside of that, the main characters are non-staff bitted PCs, including the main pilot, doctor, and sciences division. The main deck person was only just recently made a staffer, but her job is mainly code. You're allowed to submit ideas, and while you're encouraged not to make them too dangerous, you can also affect the way the whole game goes. It was a player that decided to ask to switch the game from a defensive 'watch our own asses' theme to a 'lets punch them in the face and see how they like it' theme. I feel I have more freedoms here, and that the game would flourish if it had a larger player base, which is my lone complaint about it - they don't want much in the way of advertising, so there's no ad. Most MUD connector sites list it as dead. If I had not stumbled across the wiki when I was searching for the /show/ it's based on, I'd not found it. Isolationism may be the one thing that kills what really is a gem of a game.
I guess what it comes down to, is if you're going to be staff and play your cards close to your chest, at least allow side plots related to the theme to be ran freely, and don't limit the plots to 'if staff's running it, it's the only important one'.