What about the Underground series? Worth picking up ?
Watched a few videos of Ultima 1 - 3 gameplay in action, and i have to say i'm not sure... Is it backed up by enough good writing to warrant a playtrough? I know from the first 10 minutes of IV that the later installments appear to have great writing. what about the first few?

As much as I've had fun with the first three and as much as I think Ultima III is a genuinely good game, I have to say that the series really starts with Ultima IV. The first three have no real story to speak of other than the small pieces of background information in their manuals. They aren't set in the continent of Britannia that is largely consistent from Ultima IV onwards, they don't feature a conversation system, they don't feature recruitable party members, they don't deal with the Avatar, they don't have anything to do with the virtues. Each one is basically a "kill the big boss" type game and they all feel very stand alone in comparison to the tightly knit story and lore of Ultima IV onwards.

Worth getting for historical reasons or out of curiosity? Definitely! The third one is even a good game in my point of view. But if you're only interested in ploughing through the main parts of the series and given that you've already started (or even completed) Ultima IV, I can't say I recommend them to you. The big fear here is that the earlier entries might put people off the whole series as there is little story, little lore and hardly any NPC characterisation at all in the first three games.

I think most people would do better to start playing through the series with Ultima IV. The first three games can be purchased or played later on. That way the earlier games won't put people off the whole series and they can be experienced after the real quality of the series (IV, V, VI and VII) has made its mark on them.

As for the Ultima Underworld games that you mentioned, they are definitely worth picking up! If you continue to play through the series chronologically, the first Ultima Underworld game comes in just before Ultima VII: The Black Gate while the second Ultima Underworld game comes in before Ultima VII Part Two: Serpent Isle.

I'd say yes. I played through Underworld just 2 years ago and in my opinion it has aged very well. It's not particularly challenging, but is huge and involved, and gives complete freedom while never losing a sense of purpose. Ultima Underworld is basically the precursor to System Shock (in a technical sense, not storywise), to give you an idea of what it's like.

Ultima Underworld is a spinoff of Ultima rather than a part of the series so don't feel you need to play any of the other games first, but chronologically it is set sometime after Ultima 6 (and evidently 200 years before Ultima 7). Ultima Underworld 2 is set in the timeskip between Ultima 7 part 1 and part 2, and I recommend playing it after finishing U7: The Black Gate. However, the first game is quite long so U7 might be on GOG by the time you're done with it.
The first 3 are not great. They have some far-out elements like spaceships and time-travel which make them stand out, but you're not missing much by skipping them.

Bought all of them, Including the first 3. Im gonna start with first and go from there. I might jump ahead and continue 4 if i get bored. Also got underground 1 + 2, i'll try them out later on. Inevitably ended up picking up Baldur's Gate because ,well, BG right?

Thanks for the advice! I'll post some toughts on the games later!

Deathstrike has a good point. The second trilogy is a very coherent story and the player really feels the power of the storytelling by going through the series and watching the main character and the NPCs grow. I-III are interesting for some of the back story, and I highly recommend you play I and III before playing the VII series as they provide much of the back story for the Ultima VII, and you will recognize a lot of the lands of Serpent Isle (VIIpt.2) if you have played I and III. II is more of a curio as it depicts Sosaria and being a tiny model of Earth in which you can hop across the whole European Continent in a matter of a few steps. Theoretically you can say each "turn" would take several weeks of game time, but that still doesn't explain how someone in California can spot an Orc living in Oklahoma with the naked eye. Still, that one is the origin of the moongates (timegates at that point) and holds a very small part of the overall story. That one caused me to miss a lot of homework in middle and high school when it came out, mostly because of all the experimentation Garriott was putting into it. Regarding the Avatar series, however, by the time you get through Utima VI the companion characters seem like old friends and the citizens of Britannia feel like they have become flesh and blood, complete with daily schedules they follow.

I realize that the Terms of Service is probably just the standard EA boilerplate at this point, but just to make certain- no one is about to suggest you need to install EA's "Origin" service to play a twenty-plus year old game, right?

No EA game on GOG requires Origin to install / play.

That was the same thing that was released on it's own, and neither one had the Underworld games either, a truly glaring oversight.

Personal fanon, btw.

The Kilrathi war god Sivar is actually the Guardian, who is using the Kilrathi as an attempt to destroy the Avatar's homeworld.

In my personal opinion, Ultima VII (and its follow-up, Ultima VII: Serpent Isle) are the pinnacle of excellence in the series, and you can play these two games with very little knowledge of the Ultima universe. The games that came before weren't too bad, though as a previous poster stated: 1-3 have virtually no plot.

IV-VI are decent games, but VII brings the series to its greatest heights. It is sad, however, that Ultima VIII and IX were such pitiful failures.

The Underworld games are good if you like a more hack-and-slash approach to the Avatar's journeys, and if you can get used to the mouse-based combat system (not as easy as you might think if you're a modern gamer). Still, they're all worth a look.

VIII's a lot better than any of the first three Ultimas and, having played it pretty heavily for the past couple of weeks, I'm not seeing what's so fail about it.

And for that matter I'd say that 4-6 were a fair lot better than just 'decent'. From a game standpoint I actually think 6 fairs better than 7 on the grounds that its combat isn't completely inconsequential.

I'm also not sure what's hard about UU's combat system. You have a 100% (or near 100%) hit rate. You don't have any bizarre "drag and slash" stuff like in Daggerfall. You also have a very clearly indicator of how long you need to hold your attack before it's fully charged.

I still have my disks for Worlds of Ultima (sitting in my Ultima 9 Dragon Ed box). Problem is that they're both on 5 1/4" floppies, and I haven't even seen one of those drives in around a decade... not that I'd even expect the floppies to work after all these years even if I did go out and buy a drive.

I certainly hope GOG gets them here. I have wanted to replay Savage Empires. Martian Dreams, not so much.