If the progress bar is too standart: I attatched a version using the wall-images which I created before.
I would like it even more if an explorer would fly over the screen as a progress bar but  I can not use any animation in this function (haven't tried without animation, yet).
But I agree, a nice splash screen would be much better.

Hi

so you suggest to replace the "mud tiles getting replaced by grass tiles progress bar" with a "black screen that has a standard progress bar"?
Honestly I wouldn't be sad to see the present progress-bar-thing disappear but not for a black screen. With a nice splash screen, ok but we had a (not so nice[1]) splash-screen before. No idea who changed that for what it is now.

[1] http://hg.globulation2.org/glob2-new/raw-file/9fcbd36fe414/data/gfx/IntroMN.png - this splash screen seems to still be bundled although it is not used in the code -> can be removed
(
$ rgrep --exclude-dir=.hg IntroMN .
$
)