Call me silly if you like (or call me maybe), but I do believe that studios consciously discriminate against some of their very own character races. Devs are people like us and prone to liking and not liking things, even concepts in their own games, and I’ve seen more than a few races that have gone undersupported and even been mocked by studios to believe that teams view all races impartially.
World of Warcraft has taken repeated potshots against its Gnomes, for example, and I don’t know if I’ve ever let go of the grudge where my Gnome had to swim in the Swamp of Sorrows instance while other races could run. And I won’t forget when I heard Guild Wars 2’s devs state at a convention that because Charr weren’t being played as much as other races, they weren’t going to get their horrible helmet clipping issues fixed.
Do MMO studios discriminate against their own character races? I say it happens. What say you?