Elements from specific sites I'd like to see, possibly:
worldofwarcraft.com - I like two things here. One, the papery background all the news comes on is alot like what I'm looking for, though it could stand to look a bit more aged. Also, if you look behind the top WoW Community Site logo, there is a reinforced metallic looking border, running the horizontal length of the site, I feel this might make a good addition to our look. What I don't like here, however, is the background, it doesn't blend well with the rest, and leaves the sides feeling empty. This might be a space we could stick some joke advertisements in?
worldofwar.net - this is what I want to avoid- a generic, allakhazam look alike database site. Ugly.
http://wowvault.ign.com/ - this is only so much better than worldofwar.net, and other sites like it. The background isnt that ugly windows 95 hardened puke. The only thing I like here is the color scheme, though it isn't very creative.
http://wow.ogaming.com/ - Jesus, does every major WoW site out there look like this? Let's avoid the slew of links and such on the left, I think it'd be refreshing to readers to have a different arrangement. key will be not bogging it down with unfamiliarity.
While on the subject of avoiding the left column o' links, why don't add to the front page columned feel I'm looking for by adding a column for this? Think about it, every front page paper has a small section deatailing what else is in there..
Ok, I've looked at 20+ WoW sites, and it's simply an abysmal slew of sameness. For a true idea of what I want, pick up the paper in the morning, look at the collumn structure, and imagine you are an orc picking up a big stone framed scroll.