Making a simple RPG for fun, suggestions?

[Cribanox]

So I plan on developing an RPG for a fun profject with RPG Maker ZX on my PC. I want to use all origional sprites (made myself) and music (also by me).

I am highly influenced by EQ. I want to make this game kind of like a story that tells itself as you explore, kind of like EQ.. with multiple races and classes, gods and dragons, etc.

I do want to keep things simple and familiar to most people. Any real suggestions, like maybe what classes to create? Or maybe some simple game developer suggestions? Like how to plan things out and how to keep your data organized?

I don't expect this to be a huge world like EQ is, maybe close to how big EQ origonally was on release.

RMXP does a lot of the work for me, all I reallly have to do it draw the sprites and map out the areas. The other hard tedious works comes with balancing the battles, equipment, spells, etc.

I like little extra things in games, like druids maybe having a high level spell to control weather, etc. So, any suggestions?