First off, WoW's mechanics make it insanely easy to add another race, since you have to make a new character for each race anyways so it wouldn't piss anyone off. Second, the reason why they could just throw another race in there was because your race had absolutely zero bearing on anything in the game. The only places your race even gets noticed is your starting location and your racials, there aren't any quests/missions(WoW doesn't even have an actual story for the game) that even make mention of your race, let alone actually have to do something different for them like in XI.
Wow makes more references to race then FFXI does, and has quite a few race specific things like racials and even one race specific quest. Mechanics is a moot point anyway, true in WoW you have to start a new character for a new class but the ultimate point is why they can't a new race not the probability someone would switch.
FFXI mechanics don't hinder a new race to begin with, it simply hinders people have reason to switch races. Some will regardless, some peeps new to the game will have another choice of race and it might even draw fresh blood. Wow actually has a storyline, and this is setting aside the very well done and rich warcraft story that stretches far beyond FFXI or WoW. In Wow it's told horribly and recently has been butchered, but they do have plot summaries and you do get a general idea of what's going on by related quests.
You're right, they could just throw another race in there. What they couldn't do is make it believable and convince anyone other than the most gullible morons that they weren't completely full of shit for doing that. So, not impossible, but impossible to do it right. Letting you get that light elsewhere, or adding a 6th mob into the AA fights would be retarded; because it would punish/benefit all of those who do them after those who did them before the change. And not just making the fights easier, going to completely different zones or fighting completely different mobs; it'd be crap and that's exactly why they won't do it.
Story is the primary reason they won't add another race, because they'd never do it well. Secondary reasons would be pissing off the player base, but that could be solved by allowing you to change your race; and having to change several quests/missions/maps/mobs just for the race. It's still never going to happen and it might as well be impossible just for that reason.
Yes, I agree with you, the greatest possibility would be it would be done incorrectly. Still, they did a great job with FFXI's story already and I'm sure they could make it work wonderfully. They do a great job adding new areas and explaining why we didn't know sooner and why we can go there now and whatnot.
And it's been done before, Ever Quest 2 just did and as stated wow did a little wow ago. All I'm saying it's been done time and time again, and could be done again here. They wouldn't have to add another AA, those events happened here and with the races here, since what race you currently are means little in the AA fights and nothing else would need to be changed either.
As for the unhappy playerbase, I suppose as crude and assholey as it sounds all I have to say is get over it. Being pissed at the game because you would have to start over to be a Billybob is pretty stupid imo, stop whining and stay or switch. Obviously you can live without the new race since you don't care enough about it to switch without complaining and have been playing without it for a while.
Storywise, I can't see most of the playerbase being unhappy. A large portion don't even care about the story and simply play a mmo, and that's it. (Doesn't hurt that the story missions aren't super easy and require multiple groupings to go through.) Some would accept it as they do the CoP and ToAU story and even some would just be happy to get a new race. Sure, if it was done horribly some would be pissed, but I wouldn't call it an entire playerbase.
xD
