about adding dark messiah to the list- isnt the only rpg element in the game skill trees, nothing else?

If I add that then syndicate, darkness 2, cod and a ton of other FPS with an upgrade system would have to be added....so ill leave it out.

What elements though - making and choosing a class is barely even eligible for being an RPG element.
You get put in teams so you're not choosing the team(race) you want
The maps are small and not much for exploring, only exploiting.
The levelling up system is linear - shoot someone get 100xp, go up a number, unlock a challenge. Repeat.

thats about it.

Might and Magic series, especially Mandate of Heaven.

You haven't mentioned Deus Ex since the OP, I'm proud of you.

PLAY IT!

Do they have 2-3 or more RPG elements & are they first person with real time combat?

Yes. I've played MIght&Magic 6-9.

Team based, pick your classes, level up, upgrade skills and weapons, quests given but you can roam free, and combat can toggle between RT or turn based.

http://www.gamesas.com/topic/1339569-might-and-magic-thread-from-mm-homm/

You don't want Heroes of Might and Magic- those are strategy games.

edit- description and screen shots
http://www.gog.com/en/gamecard/might_and_magic_6_limited_edition
http://www.gog.com/en/gamecard/might_and_magic_7_for_blood_and_honor
http://www.gog.com/en/gamecard/might_and_magic_8_day_of_the_destroyer
http://www.gog.com/en/gamecard/might_and_magic_9

So which would you reccommend? are they as good as say, arx fatalis?

really? Hellgate: London?! really?

have you played it? shall i take it off? any game with lock on targeting is not worthy of the list, but it is still a FP/RPG apparently so ill leave it on,

I haven't played that. My gaming experience goes from DOS D&D (Forgotten Realms from TSR), to MM6-9, to TES starting with Morrowind.

I'd recomend trying MM6. The controls are a bit funky, but with a team of 4 you can get a lot of variation in skills to make an interesting game. You're almost always short of cash, but the leveling isn't bad, and you have some good spells to play with. I spent hundreds of hours playing this and waiting for 7 to come out- bought 7, 8, and 9 on release day. Restructuring your team gives a lot of re-playability.

The original games do not all play nice with XP and up. For a newer computer, the GOG versions work well. I just set up a Win 98SE machine to play Arena, so I can still use my originals.

Never finished it, but did play some of it: Hellgate:London is a Diablo clone. As a single-player experience, it's barely "ok." Has guns, has at least one scripted combat event moments/quests that you can't avoid (I don't mean act bosses). Gets monotonous, even for a Diablo clone (and I love a good Diablo clone).

I'm kind of in the same boat, because I loved Borderlands, Fallout:NV, Might & Magic's, etc, but I always feel like there aren't many games out there anymore that really fall into what I (personally) really want, even within the hybrid type category you're looking for.

the Might & Magic series is good action-rpg, open world fun. Just FYI, M&M8 allows one to play solo/switch party members in & out, and have dragons in your party. It's the main appeal of #8, since the others were fixed party members set at the start of the game. 6 & 7 are the better games tho, imo. I've never had any problem getting #7 and #8 to run on XP, but yeah, if you're on Win7, probably want the GoG versions (or something akin to that) for ease of access.

Edit: should add that, while the Might&Magic series is 1st person, it's designed at least somewhat around some pause-give orders to party members-unpause concept. eg, party members take turns firing in a 1-2-3-4 type order, not simultaneously. You can battle/run/fire in total real time without pausing (i've done it a lot), but it's a lot more difficult to do that way, especially in certain areas/quests.

I think that's wht I saw, as well. I wanted to play through the series again, but couldn't get 6 to work in XP. I tried loading the later ones and some worked, some didn't. I gave up until I found them on GOG.

They all tend to give you odd "errors" when trying to install , like "game needs 33MB (or whatever) of RAM to run, you have 2GB, this is a problem", heheh, but they install/run fine. #6 runs fine for me too, but the disc I have for that is from a set similar to the Millennium one on GoG, except I bought it maybe 8 years ago...eg, it may have been updated for XP already. Original non-set 7 & 8 discs, tho...they work.

convince me, are they as good as any of the following- deus ex, system shock 2, arx fatalis, Fallout NV, vampire the masquerade: bloodlines, deus ex human revolution or morrowind, because all others in the OP list I consider the lesser FP/RPG hybrids (bar the ancient DOS ones that were limited by technology, they were amazing for thier time)

They don't have character development/character role playing like Fallout:NV, so anyone wanting that to be a high criteria may not like them much, but other than that....yes, I'd say they're better than those. There's puzzles, very open exploration for the most part, great caves/dungeons, nice magic system, quirky challenges, nice sense of progression, items etc.

But imo I can't convince you by telling you how great I think they are. They're really cheap on GoG ($6 for #7 and #8 I think)...just try one of them. Or watch some Let's Plays on YouTube or something. There's some around. Like this one of 7 (part1, chr. creation/starter-tutorial island) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=szmQkXvQXVY

Dead Island, Borderlands and Hellgate: London are all in the style of Diablo, and certainly a lot more accurately described as RPG's than the Stalker series, which has never pretended to be something other than a free roaming FPS with more in-depth mechanics. It seems all you need to qualify as an RPG these days is an inventory and dialogue window.
You could add Boiling Point, Precursors and White Gold to the list. They're definitely B-list games, but I personally enjoyed Boiling Point a ton anyway

I bought the "Special Edition" (Mandate of Heaven plus 1-5) in '98. They may have tweeked it by the time you bought yours.
The only one I can make a comparison on is Morrowind. I almost did so earlier. I would call MM6 Morrowind's slightly slow cartoony little brother. The graphics and gameplay improved from there. I remember I was freaked when first exposed to mouse-look.

The story is decent, the gameplay is decent, the graphics are decent (for 1998), and the game is quite immersive. The combat quirk supplied by LadyCrimson is the RT/turn-based toggle I mentioned earlier. If you leave it in RT, it's harder, and sometimes annoying. All the bad guys move in a zig-zag, so they are no longer there when your arrow/spell gets to them. The pause-confer-act only happens in turn-based mode (which I prefer).

If you check the screen shots on GOG, all the games, 1-6, are shown in the 6-pack. You can tell which are from #6.

No way! Impossible! I watched the vid and refuse to respect your opinion!

lol!

I haven't actually played Deus Ex, no opinion there. I love/respect System Shock a lot because it's one of the few games to ever make me so nervous/palm sweaty I almost felt scared to walk around. And I loved Fallout:NV for it's character/NPC stories/quests/dialogues (and silly mods). I was obsessed with FNV for months because of those aspects. But in terms world immersion, exploration, discovery...yeah, I still like games like the MIght & Magics better.

Not only that, the servers are shut down

You can still play it singleplayer, and I think the multiplayer was relaunched fairly recently?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hellgate_london#Server_shutdown_and_future_development. It's currently in open beta form.

Only SS1 not SS2? If so you should really play SS2. Also play deus ex, you are missing out BIG TIME! and what about Arx fatalis? the immersion/exploration/discovery/atmosphere & everything else in that game is near perfect. Seems like you missed out on the best generation of FP/RPGs.