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As cool as the Alcatraz idea is, I was imagining the plane's inhabitants as being more of a planar accident or disturbance. The 'Magocracy' is going to be very large (high-magic plane), and will slowly be colonizing the plane, while hoarding all the Green Rocks to themselves, while they figure out how to transport it and themselves back. The PCs, I think, will be trying to establish a giant portal so everybody can go back.

Hmm, so is the Magocracy unified, or are there various factions withing it with opposing goals, methods and ideals? You can probably guess that I'd like to see the later. Opposing factions within an overarching group always make things more interesting (especially compared to the typical big bad evil group).

Is it run by a single powerful mage "president" with advisors, or is it more an arcane committee or council with members from various magical departments each lobbying for their own agendas?
"We need more resources devoted to building up magical agriculture!"
"No, we need to focus more on the war effort against [insert native hostile race/species]!"

Give the PCs a reason to sympathise with certain aspects of the Magocracy. Their methods may be draconian or totalitarian, but the best antagonists are those you can "understand." That said, do you really want them to be antagonists at all? Maybe they're just another way of approaching and dealing with the world.

On the topic of the "green rocks," it's a good idea to set up a rough value system. Naturally this stuff is going to end up as loot. So what is it worth? How does its value compare to say gold, or iron, or even a peasant's house?
I'd make it integral to magic items as well. Add a bit of flavour to the humdrum magic equipment. Perhaps GP component of crafting magic items is actually the expense in this magical ore. This doesn't predicate any rules changes - it's simply a flavour point (much like the idea of how crystals are usually part of psionic items in the old 3.5 rules).
How do the green rocks work/power things? I love "tron lines" so I can imagine intricate glyphs, runes and arcane circuit patterns that channel the power of the ore across the item itself, be it a sword or a magitech train.

Meanwhile, what are the green rocks? Are they solid, gas or liquid resources? Or does it vary? What do they look like? How are they mined/harvested? Are there any risks involved? Going on with the green rock trope, are they safe? Or does harvesting them carry risks? Think of the dangers of Tiberium in Command & Conquer, or Lyrium in Dragon Age. Both these resources had adverse effects on human beings. Dwarves had an interesting place in Dragon Age in that they were much more resistant to Lyrium exposure than the other races - with the side effect of being unable to wield magic.

@Ninjaxenomorph

Hehe, glad you like the ideas

I quite like the idea of no one knowing how or why they got there as opposed to the world being a "prison" or punishment. Make it a bit of a mystery. No one quite knows why people and objects get sucked into the plane.

This opens up the gates for plenty of speculation. I could easily see there being a rather headstrong and fundamentalist religion that does see it as a prison and punishment by the gods.

I could also see there being other cults/faiths that see it as some form of testing ground.

But I'd like to see that the majority of the populace (particularly those who are born there, as opposed to the rare new arrivals) simply don't know, nor particularly care. To them, it's just their world and are patiently eager for the the next random influx of resources.

I'd like to stress that I think the arrivals of new persons should be rare. The majority of the populace should be those that are descendants of past arrivals. Maybe 90% of the population or more.
Have the other small percentage be those people recently (or not so recently) flung into the world.

Keeping things vague in terms of reasons why the world is as it is gives you more opportunity to play around with things. Look at Eberron - no one knows what Dragonmarks really are, or what caused the Mourning. The more open you keep it, the less locked into to a set story/them you are. By all means entertain possibilities (and voice those possibilities as various points of view by the population). But don't lock yourself into a set answer to the big Why? just yet.

There's been a few mentions of settlements. I'd like to say go crazy as possible. Maybe there's a city in the calcified body of a dead god that got sucked onto the plane. Another is a floating city from the elemental plane of air. Maybe energies also leak in from the other planes with the random materials, giving you options for necromantic areas, strange crystal deserts, vast sands made of rusted iron scattered with immense cogs the size of mountains.

Everything should have an ancient, lost, derelict feel to it. Make the world feel as if it is a very, very old place where things have been falling into it for many thousands of years.

What about your magocracy? Who are they, how big is the organisation. Do they have a political or even religious agenda?

This is true, but it might be interesting to experiment with a bit more spell access. It opens up for opportunities for crafting magical traps.

It'd also be a convenient vehicle for archetype creation, ditching spell access in favour of other abilites much like a spell-less ranger and paladin if one is looking for a low/no magic feel. It could easily be switched out for more combat manouevre/feint options as discussed above.

Alternatively, working with the Ninja as a base, what if we added a luck pool that operated much as the Ninja's ki pool.
I could see it allowing the rogue to do things such as applying automatic combat manoeuvres to sneak attacks, as well as other usage of combat manoeuvres (repositioning, tripping, disarming multiple foes at once) with appropriate rogue-like stunts such as pulling carpets from under onrushing foes feet etc.

Pretty much.

Also an excuse to ditch said bard, a class I'm not really convinced on the necessity of (but that's really another story)

I can't help but wonder if it might be interesting to give the Rogue limited spellcasting, something along the line of 4th-level spells like the Paladin and Ranger, but arcane instead of divine, and Int-based and memorised as a wizard does.

I could easily see the Rogue as picking up such minor magical skills as it advances. I mean after all, it can already disable magical traps and use magic devices, so to me, learning how to cast a spell or two would be right up its alley.

As far as I'm concerned, this would help give the rogue the added oomph and flexibility it needs to be more viable outside the urban niche.

For a more "charismatic" rogue, you could always opt for Cha-based instead of Int-based, but I'd feel we'd be stretching the rogue's ability requirements too thin.

For me, I'd also love the "culture" of a castaways theme. It'd be like a crazy post apocalyptic fantasy punk (goblin markets meet Mad Max). Little to no "racial" regions (no elf forests or halfling hamlets), but plenty of racial and social tension nonetheless.

So what are the major resources?

How plentiful is water? Are there rivers/streams or do people use wells? Are their oceans, rivers or lakes? If water is scarce, that also provides a conflict point?
If you have any steampunk tech, water is going to be a major necessity. Whilst it obviously needs fuel (see below), plenty of water is just as (if not more) important.
If water is plentiful, "why" are there not trees. High heat with lots of water generally means jungles, not deserts. Maybe the state of the landscape is magical, not environmental - This woul tie nice with a dying world/junkyard of the planes theme in my opinion.

Now we know there are little/no trees, so what do people use as a fuel source for fire - cooking, heating, metalurgy? Creating weapons (especially higher tech weapons like guns) requires high temperature fires and thus fuel to burn.
Perhaps once upon a time there were trees, which thus allows for the possibility of plentiful coal and oil deposits?
Or maybe you want to go for something altogether more magical - some type of magical ore that people can use for a resource. This would of course create perfect opportunities for "gold rushes" and reasons for new towns to form (or die when the resource runs out).

1) The plane is mostly desert-ish/mountainy, with a lot of airship travel, for an Old-West (kinda) feel. One problem: where are the raw materials coming from? I imagine magic/town mines can take care of some of it, but a lot of wood needs to be coming from somewhere. However, new things are occassionally teleporting to the plane (though teleportation off the plane is nigh impossible), including small populations now and again.

The bolded part above is what really stuck out for me in this first criteria. It makes me think of a world that's practically a "junk yard" of the planes, where objects, resources and beasts (or even people) are randomly whisked off other planes to be unceremoniously dumped in the badlands. I can see this occuring via strange planar storms or squalls, and massive rushes as resident scavengers and resource hunters chase these storms to acquire whatever materials or resources have been left behind.

Depending upon how close you want to cling to traditional fantasy, you could even use this as an excuse to blend different levels of technology together, with detritus from various worlds, timelines and civilisations coming together.

Working with the planar storms idea, perhaps there are no "native" races. Maybe all the elves, dwarves, gnomes etc are all castaways from whatever world they were torn from.

I'd even like to see this as being an "ancient" world, with ruins of a long gone civilisation strewn across the desert, juxtaposed to a hodgepodge of medieval/steampunk scavenger societies stranded on the plane with no way home.

2) What classes would work? The ones I mentioned above work, but I was thinking some tradionalist martial classes, like a fighter or barbarian would work too. Any other classes which might work?

I'd like to see all the classes (especially with a castaways idea). Gunslingers along side wizards and savage barbarian tribes.

3) I think I might have the PCs operate out of a central location at first, getting new and better bases as they gain fame and resources. How can I convince players to move to a new residence without seeming too obvious? I was thinking at first they have a maid who nags that all their stuff takes up too much space, but does anyone have any better ideas?

Destroy their home town. Give them a reason to flee. Give them an attractive incentive to move to another town (maybe a gold rush type event). Heck, even reward them with a new residence (maybe they do a job for the town mayor and he offers new lodgings) *shrugs*

It really depends on what you want the story arc to be.