I'm planning for maybe 4-5 hours max
That's a lot of RPG. How long do you think it will take you to finish making the game? That's a lot of content, especially if you're going for so many different enviroments and details.
This quote comes from one of the animators from Bungie,
“The best thing to do when making game is to get 30 seconds of fun and just keep doing it over and over again, if you don’t have that 30 seconds it wont be as good as it could be...”
Now I love RPGs like Morrowind ect, yet I hate turn based I feel it ruins the game. I don’t have the time atm to sift through all the posts here to find out if you said its turn based or not but if it is ^^^ if not ignore that.
Someone probably said all of this so far; don’t start off the game with the player knowing too much try and get them to learn about the character subliminally, by interactions with other people or sneak in into cut scenes. Like someone else probably said code first then let the artists come to you.
(Ps I've played 300hr rpgs... yet a 5hr rpg is a large task for one man)
"...you're 16, close to turning 17." *Sings* I am 16 going on 17! *Sings*