I'm really interested in Gothic, but I'm wondering: how essential is it that I play Gothic 1 before Gothic 2?

Gothic II starts exactly where the story of Gothic ends. And, both are great games although IMO Gothic II is even better. I would play the first one.

I found the first one to be better actually. You don't have to play Gothic 1 before Gothic 2, but it is recommended that you do. There are many details that you will appreciate a lot more if you have played through the first game.

G1 is fun, although gets progressively more linear as the story develops.
Double fun if you overlevel in the first chapter, use smithing to make free money, learn to throw away your ore before stealing stuff and learn lockpick patterns.

And, yes, the stories are closely connected and many of the main characters close friends are introduced in the first Gothic.

Not essential. IIRC, Gothic II opens with a summary of the plot of the first game, and it's not like there's a lot of it.

That being said, I myself prefer the first game to the second. If you like the genre, I'd really recommend you play both of them. If you just want to try it out, then GII is probably a better choice, as it is in many ways more refined than the first one.

So you basically like cheating through the game. : )By your pilosophy DOOM is double fun with idkfa and yes it most certainly was.

I also found myself using those exploits. I missed the ore one though. Why does dropping the ore help?.

I wouldn't call even jumping off clifffs while holding both strafe buttons to flap your elbows and land softly a cheat. A convenience, yes (quick travel spells come way too late). But I kill beasts and orcs fair, hardly ever buy weapons and can't be bothered to spend points on lockpicks.
My character had so much beer on him at the final boss, I refuse to believe the brief memory loss in G2 was caused by anything but drinking. Because whenever someone beats you up they search your groin for ore. If you don't have any, they don't take any. And they don't care about stolen items. Just be sure to drop the chunks outside the old camp's castle and beware that one guy will search you a second time if you commit a crime inside the castle. But that's the way to steal a two-hander in chapter 1. :)

What do you need ore for anyway?

I'd recommend playing the first one before the second one, basically for all the reasons mentioned here. You'll appreciate the setting in GII much more after that.
Also, GII is much, much more refined so going back to the original feels like a huge downgrade. Get GI out of the way with and appreciate it for what it is before you take on the masterpiece that is GII.

Some training and faction armor. They don't take crude swords or arrows as a currency.

Yeah but after the first couple of hours money is never a problem anyway, provided you do your exploration. Which you should!

It really depends on your level of patience and tolerance towards awkward controls.
Do try Gothic 1 first, and try to persevere. If for some reason you DON'T get sunk in it in the first few hours because of the agreeably silly controls, just fire up Gothic 2, as it's better in every aspect, and you don't want to be missing on a great series out of irritation.

Get the first Gothic as well if you can afford it and you have the time to play it. You'll have an easier time with it than with Gothic 2, if you install Night of the Raven on the latter.

I'd recommend to still install Raven for your first time, the difficulty is amped up, but it adds a lot. It will make your experience much more enjoyable, in my opinion.

Hit me up before you start G2 and I'll give you tips on how to make your G2 experience A LOT less frustrating.

I finished the vanilla G2 about 5 times, spent 2 years of my youth playing it and last year I decided to give it a go with Raven installed as well (the GOG version). Needless to say I consider it an extremely hard game which made me sweat. I can't remember if it was fun or not, it was definitely different (new locations, some changed old locations, new NPCs), but it was a lot harder than I used to remember it.