That's good, because Ter Shibboleth is Quake's most visionary achievement. 

I've played shib7 at least 5 times and on multiple difficulties, and it continues to blow me away every time that I play it. I've already said a lot about this map in other places but to reiterate, it's absolutely incredible how you can see the Eiffel Tower in the distance from the roof of the cathedral and then actually get there. Just seeing the tower looming against the backdrop of lightning is amazing. You also nailed the cinematic moments like coming upon the cathedral itself - when you first come upon it, it's framed beautifully such that you can't help but take a few seconds to marvel at it.

There is such an incredible amount of detail in this map that it's scary to think of the amount of effort that went into it. The custom textures go a long way to make each individual area come alive with its own bit of personality, like the bread shop or the ornate wallpaper adorning some apartments. The entire atmosphere of the map is pretty much unmatched by anything else courtesy of things like the hanging bodies from shop signs and the giant corpses. It's such a twisted take on what one would otherwise expect out of Paris. There's also something amazing about how one can stare out upon miles of city buildings and homes and even though many of the windows are lit up, it feels cold and devoid of any life.

All of the vistas are so well done like the aforementioned cathedral rooftop and especially the tower itself. It was brilliant to have that first section where the player has to skirt around the perimeter to progress, which gives a nice view of the first part of the map as well as a huge chunk of the city. I spent a ton of time firing projectiles into the distance just to marvel at the scale of the map. The ability to look down at the first part of the map, which appears so far away, conveys a real sense of progress. Even the inside of the tower has such a menacing feeling and the empty paint cans and broken structures add to the atmosphere as well.

I could go on forever about all the little things that I love about this map. I think that it's my favorite in Ter Shib excluding shib8 since I haven't played that yet. I went for the 100% clear and I enjoyed every second of it. I'm debating holding off on shib8 because I don't want it to end. 

I’ll admit I tried to play the maps, but they ran so slowly as to be unplayable. To be fair, I play on an old laptop, but I’ve never experienced slowdown like this in Quake before.

That being said, the artistic merit of these maps is unquestionable. Even if I’m incapable of playing them, I imagine myself as being in the minority, and consider this a more than worthy endeavor, regardless of which mod was used. 

I'm in the same position. Managed to get through map 2 but barely as it was a slideshow. Map 3 was next to unplayable so I didn't bother with it. Too bad as the end of map 1 and first half of map 2 showed a lot of promise. Perhaps another game engine would have served you better. 

I can't tell you how happy it makes me feel to hear that you are enjoying it. Poorchop, your reviews of the first two maps, I don't even know where to begin other than thank you so much. You described both maps so vividly, far better than I possibly could. I hope that shib8 is as much a pleasant experience for you when you eventually get to it.

ionous and maiden, I do apologize that shib8 is unplayable for you because of the horrendously low framerate, this was to be expected. HOWEVER, there is something big on the horizon that I hope will arrive very soon, that will drastically increase framerates for everyone, even those on much lower end hardware. I can't say what it is yet, just know that its in the works. 

Thanks to the assiduous efforts from Spike, I am excited to share with everyone a beta version of the FTE engine that is able to run the shib maps at 60+ frames per second. Even those on lower end hardware will benefit immensely with this engine, an Intel HD Graphics 4000 gets 30-60 fps on shib8.

Because this is a beta version of FTE, there are some additional console commands (including those in the original post) that MUST be used. You can put these in your autoexec.cfg, quake.rc, or however you see fit.

r_temporalscenecache 1
sv_autooffload 1
gl_pbolightmaps 1
sv_savefmt 1

Skill level must be set BEFORE entering any map, so be sure to set it while a demo is playing or when you are disconnected at the console.

Lastly and very minor, because FTE uses a different method of rendering dynamic lights, the lightning illusion effect on shib7 is gone.

I know Ter Shibboleth is old news now and most have moved on, but hopefully this new version of FTE will entice those to replay it again at high framerates, or be available to those with low end hardware for the first time like ionous and maiden.

Once again thank you to Spike for this incredible revelation!

http://fte.triptohell.info/moodles/win64/fteqw64.exe (64-bit)
http://fte.triptohell.info/moodles/win32/fteqw.exe (32-bit) 

i tried to download it, but windows defender won't let me :P 

Just as i finished playing through all shib1-8 xD

Very impressive work, not only because of the sheer size, but also the awesome detailwork that went into that project.
Tons of beautiful brushwork and cool ideas.

More in depth (warning, possible spoilers ahead):

shib6: Has a very "cool" atmosphere, quite literally.
I love how at almost the beginning, at that slope, you get a view over that whole village.
The bunkers took me by surprise, loved how you got to shoot those incoming troops with the tank. Awesome!

shib7: I think i dont have to add much to Notre Dame, the Eiffeltower and that lightningefeect in the sky. Mindblowing!
Also those skeletal faces coming out of the ground and that huge dude with his eyes hanging out are very cool.
I found it to be tad too dark in places though.
But thats maybe also due to my 11 year old monitor which hasnt the greates contrast.
I sometimes ran around in circles just searching for another entrance i might have overlooked.

shib8: Maybe the most breathtaking of them all, but also the most fps tanking.
Very nice texture choice, cool brushwork all over the place.
I love how get to jump onto that catapult and fly all the why up to see the inside of that gigantous collosseum.

As mentioned i also just played Ter Shibboleth 1, and also have some thoughts on that.
Overall i found ammo to be a bit scarce in Ter 1 on skill 1, had often to resort to axing and infighting.

Shib1: Reminded a bit of that Duke 3D addon, Duke Carribbean.
Found it a bummer that one couldnt swimm over to that smaller islands and find some hilarious eastereggs.

Shib2: Liked the style of that one too.
The puzzle maze in the middle got me a bit confused, but yeah, thats what a puzzle maze is supposed to do, i guess.
That rotating chamber near the end was awesome.
Had some "Event Horizon" atmosphere to it.

shib3: My favourite of them all, next to shib7.
Another tempel shooting ballistics over?
Can't get much more epic than that, i guess.
But it's also one of the maps that could have used more ammo in the middle part and less at the end.

shib4: I'm a little bit split on this one.
I found the setting very enjoyable, reminded a bit of a dark Alice in Wonderland, but with a more Lovecraftish tone, opposed to American Mcgee's one.
Here too very lovely details, like that moving eye and the clocktower.
I only found it a bit confusing to navigate, and again ammo to be scarce.

shib5: Yeehaa!


Overall i like Ter Shiboleth very much!

There still some thoughts on the optimization side of this.
I mean, on a project as huge like this i can understand why it get's taxing and one just wants to get them finished, i still found there to be a huge amount of optimisation potential.

Like on shib5, where the skip texture is nowhere used (as far as i could tell), and thus triangles are drawn that never could be seen by the player anyway, except for those who noclip or glitch their way out of the map, like myself xD

If one ommits the use of -vis for obvious reasons, propper skipping might still have yielded some frames.

I think there might even be a small possibilty for some of them to get to be vised, with now available variants of func_detail.
Would still be a long shot due to sheer size.

Maybe there would be the possibility for EricW to introduce some kind of "skyskip".
My thought would be that you basicly would box in the playable area with that, and only whats inside this box gets vised, to get kind of a "skyportal" effect.
Could cut vis times down tremendously on such extremly huge maps.
Question is if that is even possible with q1bsp.

Thats one of the reasons why i prefer to use q3bsp for such things.
With a skyportal the area extending beyond the playable area can look as huge an farstretching but in reality does not need to be bigger than the actual playable area.

But thats just me whining ;-) 

Localized entirely within your Quake map?

It is the Aurora Borealis!

Got around to starting my way through this, Shib 6. Incredibly charming visuals and massive vistas, never before seen on this scale.

Very inspiring locale that almost has a strangely heartwarming feeling to play through. Nicely done.

I did find the gameplay and enemy placement to be rather sporadic, and there were no real traps or threats which makes things feel a little flat.

Overall, an inspiring map. Look forward to continuing on with the other two.

Demo:
http://www.quaketastic.com/files/demos/red_shib6.7z 

Wakey, I'm happy to hear you played through the first five maps, in addition to Part 2. I'm right there with you on shib3 being my personal favorite of Part1, and shib7 being my favorite of part 2. But I like all the ones I've built, and I'm really glad you did too. I know Part 1 was very stingy on ammunition, bad design decision and one of the main reasons I chose the Drake mod for Part 2 as through power ups and such, ammo was a lot more plentiful. As well a bit more common sense on my part.

I'll come clean, optimization was never really something I cared about during development. Or maybe not worried is the right phrase. I just built things to my hearts content and whatever the performance was, I kind of dealt with it. Not the best approach I admit.

And yes Redfield, steamed shams :) I know shib6 is a bit of a slow start with everything being pretty spaced out as you said, but I think you'll find 7 and 8 to really pick up the pace with the action. Watching your demo is on my to do list! 

I was pretty stoked when I saw the news about FTE and I finally gave it a shot yesterday. I have issues with FTE in Windows so I used the Linux release and I actually got pretty solid performance on the latest stable build without using the suggested commands. A short while ago, I tried the Linux beta with the commands and performance seemed about the same. I didn't enable the FPS counter but I got what looked like a solid 60fps depending on where I was looking. However, it was worth it for me to cap the frame limit to 45 because the constant swing from 60 to a much lower frame rate gives me a headache since I'm an old fart. Nevertheless, it was pretty awesome getting good performance at times in shib6 and shib7.

@Tribal I've been getting a warning from Windows Defender about FTE for a really long time but I spoke with Spike and I'm pretty sure that he's not trying to hijack our PCs. He also verified the checksums with me on his end to ensure that the site wasn't compromised and that there wasn't any MITM attack going on.

I kind of spoiled shib8 testing it in FTE - I never went up the stairs after finishing shib7 and saving but my jaw dropped when I finally did yesterday. I'm still hesitant about playing it now because I don't want to close the chapter on Ter Shib but it's hard to resist playing after seeing how awesome the last map looks. 

I know that part about building maps to ones hearts content very well :D
It's what makes mapping so great, and in your maps i got that feeling, that they are build with a lot of passion and a vision, they are truly pieces of [he]art.

That much said, i am also one of those mappers who placed the delivery of a vision above optimisation concerns often enough ^^' 

This is great news, Orl. I hope to give it a run next weekend. 

Here is my playthrough of the second map:

http://www.quaketastic.com/files/demos/demos/red_shib7.7z

This nightmarish recreation of Paris in Quake is really neat. The layout through all the smaller buildings that encircled the main courtyards was really good. And the hideous monsters coming out of the ground really give off the vibe something horrible has happened to this place.

The final ascension to the top of the tower was pretty epic, and the fitting conclusion I expected.

There were a couple of things that didn't sit well, like some of the odd texture stretched beyond 1 pixel/world space unit, and in some cases the use of fence/cards to represent something felt too DOOMish (model those lightbulbs darnit) But these are minor gripes.

Overall this was a pretty astounding realism inspired Quake map, which is one of my favourite styles. I had a lot of fun on this one. 

Enjoyed watching it, as you came close to dying quite a few times, kept me on the edge of my seat. I hoped you enjoyed the views as I saw a few times you stopped and looked around slowly, soaking in the atmosphere. And thank you for the kind words, and for realizing that the very last elevator malfunctioning was not my fault, and its just Quake being Quake :)

Like many others you chose to go into the map with only a shotgun. Which is fine of course, just be aware that its more challenging that way, especially going into shib8. Speaking of which, once you start shib8 I really recommend using the FTE engine in post #31. You'll get much higher framerates, 60+ on modern systems as opposed to Quakespasms 20-30.

If you do plan on recording a demo in FTE, change sv_autooffload to 0 otherwise you'll just get tons of problems. And when you start recording, make sure you do it AFTER you have loaded into shib8. Sorry that its so much of a hassle but its worth it for those sweet 60 fps. 

Here is my demo of the 3rd map:

http://www.quaketastic.com/files/demos/demos/red_shib8.7z

Massive scale, even exceeding the other 2 maps. Some really great set pieces here, I like the underground portions hinting at sinister origins, and the final boss chamber was awesome.
The Colosseum was also incomprehensibly huge providing nice vistas from anywhere on the map.

Combat was overall exceedingly difficult, probably due to the Drake enemies. A fun map, and pack overall. 

There are spoilers below so avoid this post if you haven't already played these maps.

I had delayed playing the final map because I wanted to ensure that I had enough time to fully appreciate it and I was also hesitant to close the book on Ter Shib. I picked up with a previous save that I had made in vkQuake so I was dealing with some pretty rough frame rates but even if this map was reduced to a slideshow, I would've enjoyed it anyway. The final map combined pretty much everything that I have loved in this entire series.

Coming up the stairs, the Colosseum was a pretty incredible sight at it reminded me of seeing the massive bridge in shib1 for the first time. As I played through the map, I was surprised to find that it was much larger than what I had anticipated since much of it was not immediately visible at the start. I think that I might have broken the flow of the map a bit because I skirted around a ledge in order to reach the area with the smoke/shadow armor (which I immediately lost by grabbing another type of armor), and I was able to get behind the gate without first grabbing the silver key. I guess you expected that players might do this though since I didn't see another way to access this secret area, plus the gate was automatically lowered so that I wasn't trapped.

Coming upon the other main sections of the map was almost as amazing as seeing the Colosseum. The underground area increased the scale of an already enormous map, and it reminded me of discovering the ruins of the ancient underground palace upon which the new one was built in Sands of Time. After traversing rooftops, the flooded chamber, and the catacombs, I was almost starting to worry that the Colosseum wouldn't actually be a part of the map but the way that shib7 played out gave me hope. I knew what was up when I found the catapults. I took my time soaking in the sights once I was launched over. I was a little bummed that the interior wasn't part of the playable area but I understood how it wouldn't have really been possible to work it in due to the insane scale of it. I was still glad that we were afforded a close look and looking down over the town put the distance traveled into perspective since the main area looked tiny from above despite being huge.

The gameplay was solid although the underground miniboss absolutely annihilated me multiple times. I kind of felt like I was cheating by carrying over my items and ammo from the previous maps but I'm starting to play like an old fart so I needed the handicap. I also found that it was possible to skip pretty much the entire map and get to the final boss without collecting the four swords, but of course nobody is going to want to skip over anything. I didn't really want to exit the map after beating the boss but I was happy that you gave it a positive spin via the messages.

As I had mentioned before, Ter Shib screenshots are what finally got me curious about the Quake mapping scene and the actual game itself. I was already amazed by what you had pulled off before I came to understand how difficult it is after trying my hand at mapping. The atmosphere that you created through the scale at which you were working is what I wish I could capture. I didn't intend to write a novel so I'll cut it here but this series was nothing short of amazing and the finale was an incredible way to wrap everything up. Thanks for all of the inspiration and for all of the fun.