The Warhammer universe is so rich that the development team had too much source material to include in the game. They were forced to pick the races that made the most sense for launch, so even though some of the team loved the Skaven race, they aren't featured as a playable race. The beauty of creating a persistent online world means that other races may be added postrelease, and the team is intent on supporting Warhammer Online in this way, but the subject isn't something that they're prepared to talk about at this stage. With the game only now approaching open beta, the team is currently focusing on tweaking the content that is already in place. The closed beta programme, which is currently ongoing, has apparently produced a lot of suggestions for changes. The last few months have been spent reacting to these suggestions, and if you preorder the special edition of the game, then you'll be able to enter the open beta later in the year.
