did anyone actually finish ultima 7? I tried it several times, but was always stopped by some bug and could not continue. the truth is however it was always with exult

and well time almost come for another replay.. :) so the questions are:

1) is it finishable without hacks / specials patches / having to pay attention for some specific problems?

2) is it finishable in exult or should it rather be played without it? (speaking about bugs / game crippling issues)

thanks

I completed both The Black Gate and Serpent Isle with Exult and without any issues. One serious bug I'd heard about was the one that occurs if you pilot your magic carpet above a certain mountain range (because it triggers a door in the dungeon several levels below), so I took care not to do that. But otherwise it's fine, and any glitches are merely teporary.

I remember having problems in that magicians city, where some actions did not trigger and there were no way to continue. I looked into a walkthrough I just found out that I did everything +- as I should but the world did not react accordingly. having no save prior that I was stuck

Walkthroughs can be a bit vague or even incorrect. Can you post a specific example? Maybe multiple conditions needed to be met for the plot to advance. I know the Serpent Isle can be a bit obstinate with the player, but I did complete it without any major issues.

The only issue I found with Exult was that the game doesn't update. One character that gets killed half way through the game was just still walking around. Despite the fact that you could see his murder in that crystal ball next to where his corpse should have been.

As for the vanilla version it is certainly beatable as it is.

I've completed Black Gate with a vanilla GOG installation (no Exult) several times and I've run into two bugs, one being the Minoc crime scene cleaning before I was ready, and the second being the cube generator causing the game to corrupt.
To avoid the first, I'd say save your game before arriving to Minoc the first time and make sure you take the dagger at the crime scene there.
Second, I worked out in this thread and had to use cheats to get by:
https://www.gog.com/forum/ultima_series/ultima_vii_issue_with_game_corruption_during_cube_generator

The best thing to do would be to keep multiple saves. Instead of overwriting the same one or two save in every slot, but pick a different one each time i.e. save in slot 1 the first time, then next time slot 2, then next time slot 3, etc. In the case of Exult, never overwrite and always generate new saves. That way if something bad happens you aren't totally screwed

I've finished both The Black Gate and The Serpent Isle many times with Exult, without problems whatsoever.
Be sure to grab the latest version from the Exult website and not use some older version you might've gotten elsewhere.

I also doubt something in Moonshade not triggering correctly, making you get stuck there. Story progression here might be a bit unclear but ask the right questions of the right people and you're on your way.

With Exult I've finished Ultima 7: The Black Gate twice and Serpet Isle once. I find it to be a very stable program and honestly probably more stable than vanilla. Like others said just keep multiple save slots just in case, and only rewrite over the quick save slot.

Same here, exactly. Two times through U7+FoV and once through SI+SS. Never a problem. I've even finished U8 using Pentagram (some of the same devs) and found it to be a lot more stable than even the devs give it credit for. I've also used the Windows versions, and compiled them for Mac and Linux before too, and always had a great experience.

Edit: On the Moonshade thing, there are a couple of odd things about that area. I've even seen some walkthroughs miss a couple of items that need to be done, or people that need to be spoken to. It took me quite a while to get this part done last time I played even though I had played before. There was an NPC that was supposed to give me something, which kicked off a major part of that section of the game. Since I was exploring, and not walking straight into town, I missed it, and had to track it down in another area later on. Anyway, as mentioned above a post or two up, there shouldn't be any way to get TRULY stuck there. You just have to go through make sure you didn't miss something.