dtgreene: Between the atrocious inventory system, the need to manually feed characters, the poor combat system where you have almost no control, and the bugs in the game, it really makes me wonder how Ultima 7 ended up so well regarded; many of those issues should have been dealbreakers for most players.
tomimt: I think, for many, it was still simple enough to work around those "simulation" aspects of Ultima 7 and concentrate on the story itself. But I do find it a bit odd, that U7 is so well regarded, as besides having a pretty poor UI and annoying busy work like feeding the characters, its combat system is also pretty poor.
Its saving grace might be, that you can run away from most fights pretty easily. I don't think I personally levelled up once when I played it through myself, as the RPG mechanics in it are so poorly done. The same happened with Ultima 6 as well, as its combat system isn't much better.
Actually, I think I like Ultima 6's combat system the most out of all the Utlima games; the one change I'd make is make physical attacks considerably more likely to hit (and, to keep things balanced, make offensive spells do more damage; this wouldn't affect Disable or Kill, of course).
On the other hand, Ultima 3 has the best class system in the game, and even *that* isn't really balanced (Exotic Armor hurts it, as does the fact that you can only hit with Exotic Weapons in the endgame, and the classes that get neither strong magic nor ranged attacks are pretty much worthless). Ultima 4 is worse in class balance (Fighters get shafted, lacking both magic and good ranged weapons; in fact they can't hit at all with ranged weapons in the final dungeon).
Anyway, the problem with working around the simulation aspects of Ultima 7 is that you can't ignore them, and you still have to deal with the mundane task of feeding the characters or they'll die. It wouldn't be as much of a problem if the simulation mechanics were optional, but they aren't.
Incidentally, one other thing I don't miss about the Ultima games (starting with 4) is the need to gather (and in 4 and 5, mix) reagents to cast even the most basic spells; many spells (like Missile and Open) are basically useless because of this requirements, and the mechanic discourages players from using anything other than basic attacks during combat. It's really a shame, because the Ultima series is one of the earliest games I've seen MP regenerate in (starts in 3, though the mechanic is absent in 5 for whatever reason), a mechanic that encourages players to actually use spells.
By the way, did you know that, in Ultima 7, you can get enough money to make the game crash? (The easiest way to do this is to gamble; save first, than reload if you lose. Your wager will grow exponentially, and you can just leave your bet on the table and play again. Winning enough times will crash the game, as the game has to create more money objects, and will run out of memory; while this easily happens in the original engine, since the growth is exponential, it is probably feasible to get this to happen in Exult.)
