ArbitraryWater: I wonder if they can get exult in regards to U7. I mean, it's clearly a superior way to go in regards to running the thing as well as adding in some novel tweaks. Then again, even if they didn't it wouldn't exactly be hard to get exult running regardless.
gibbelin: I use Exult (and I love it) but I doubt they'd go that direction. It's my understanding that Exult uses a lot guesswork for the underlying mechanics (particularly combat), which might peeve a lot of people. I suspect that if GOG ever does release U7, they'll just Dosbox the original game, the same way they usually do.
I'd definitely pay for the first 6 Ultimas though. I've never played any of them.
Fortunately I still have the Ultima Collection DVD which EA released 10 years ago,
so no need to rebuy them again. Either way I am also rather convinced they simply will use dosbox instead of Exult. The game nowadays runs fine on Dosbox.
Btw. speaking of exult, getting U7 up and running properly on Exult and OSX was a mess, took me a while to figure out which folder was the correct one, since OSX does not have the launcher/installer of the windows version.