[Participating in the Nexon PEAK Post Challenge]

https://peak.nexon.com/post/1863

Hello, this is Edgar.

When you play games, it is strange how a scene that seems like nothing special can stay with you for years.

Not a huge boss fight,
not some dazzling ending scene,
but a screen that always comes back whenever I think of that game.

For me, that screen is the loading screen in DNF.

To be more precise, it is the moment just before entering a dungeon,
when the screen pauses for a second,
and there is that brief wait where it feels like the battle is about to begin.

These days, PCs are better and loading is much faster,
so it often feels like a moment that slips by in an instant.

But back then, it felt different.

At the PC bang, when my friends and I would start up DNF
and head into a dungeon to burn through our fatigue,
that short loading time always carried a curious kind of tension.

“Let us clear this run quickly.”
“Hey, save your awakening for the boss room.”
“Please, just let one item drop.”

That was exactly the kind of moment when lines like these would come out.

DNF’s loading screen stayed with me so strongly
because it was more than just time spent waiting.

It really did feel
like a boundary between town and battle.

In town, you check your gear, put points into skills,
chat with friends, and stay in a fairly relaxed mood,
but the moment you press the button to enter the dungeon, the atmosphere changes all at once.

Once the loading screen is over,
it is time to really fight.

Monsters rush in,
you have to use your skills,
keep your combos going,
and push all the way to the boss room.

Those few short seconds
added more to the game’s sense of immersion than I realized at the time.

Games today have moved toward making loading screens as short as possible.

Of course, faster is better.

When the wait is too long, it feels frustrating,
and especially in repetitive play, long loading only makes things more tiring.

Still, as someone who played DNF for a long time,
I never felt that the loading screen was completely meaningless time.

It was a moment to catch your breath.

Even if I had been rushing through my preparation in town,
the moment the loading screen appeared, I would naturally gather my thoughts.

Which skill I would open with in this dungeon,
how I would line up my cooldowns before the boss room,
and, if I was in a party, who would gather the monsters first—
I would run through those little calculations in my head.

DNF, in particular, has a strong action-game feel,
so once the battle begins, your hands are busy right away.

Every time you move into a new room, monsters appear,
if you use the wrong skill, your cooldowns get awkward,
and if you miss a boss pattern, you take an unnecessary hit and lose your flow.

That is why the loading screen
felt like a brief warm-up right before the fight.

Back when I played DNF,
even the feeling of waiting through the loading screen changed a little depending on the character.

When I was playing a character with satisfying damage output,
I just wanted to get in there and pour out my skills as quickly as possible.

On the other hand, if my gear still felt uncertain
or I was playing a character I had not fully gotten used to,
the moment the loading screen appeared, I would feel slightly tense.

“Will this run go smoothly?”
“I really cannot mess up in the boss room.”

Those were the thoughts that would cross my mind.

It was nothing dramatic,
but moments like that made the game feel more like a game.

What I remember most about the loading screen
was not the tip text itself, but the atmosphere around it.

At its core, DNF is a game where fast action and impact matter.

So rather than feeling like a screen that explained things at length,
it felt more like a short signal that said, “It is about to begin.”

There is a brief pause,
the screen changes,
your character is standing in the dungeon,
and the moment you see the monsters in the first room, your hands move on their own.

I loved that flow.

In modern terms, I suppose you could say the tempo was good.

It was not that the waiting was long and dull,
but that it had a rhythm that led straight into the next action.

That was even more true when I was playing with friends.

When you play alone, you simply wait through the loading screen in silence,
but when you enter as a party with friends, even the loading screen becomes part of the conversation.

If someone’s computer was slow and they loaded in late,
they immediately became the target of a little teasing.

“Hey, are you still loading?”
“Get a new computer.”
“You picked the wrong seat at the PC bang.”

Lines like that came out naturally.

The funny thing is, I was the one loading in late sometimes too.

When that happened, I would blame the internet for no good reason.

“The connection is weird today.”
“It has been lagging since earlier.”

Looking back now, those were such small excuses,
but even those conversations are part of what I remember about that loading screen.

A game loading screen is,
in the end, time the player cannot directly control.

But depending on how that time feels,
I think it can change the mood of the whole game.

In some games, loading feels like nothing but waiting,
while in others, it makes you look forward to what comes next.

For me, DNF was much closer to the latter.

That short loading time before entering a dungeon
made me look ahead to the next fight.

I knew I would soon be using my skills,
pulling mobs together and clearing them out,
and feeling that satisfying burst in the boss room all at once.

Of course, looking back now,
the loading screen itself was not especially flashy.

But I do not think the things that stay with us the longest
do so only because they were flashy.

The sounds of the PC bang back then,
the voice of the friend beside me,
the feel of my fingers on the keyboard,
and that peculiar sense of anticipation before entering the dungeon—
I think all of it came together and stayed in my memory.

That is why I believe a good loading screen
is not just a single pretty image.

It has to fit the game’s atmosphere.

In a fast action game like DNF,
rather than explaining things for too long,
it feels more fitting for the loading screen to push you toward the next battle in a short, sharp way.

You only wait for a moment,
and yet it feels as if your fingers are already poised over the keyboard.

That was the charm of DNF’s loading screen.

These days, the technology for reducing loading times has improved,
and players do not really like waiting very much either.

I feel the same way.

Long loading times are frustrating.

But if loading screens disappeared completely,
I think there would be something a little sad about that too.

That small pause before the game begins,
the brief tension right before battle,
and the time to imagine the next scene
were all clearly part of the experience as well.

DNF especially
was a game with a very clear transition from town to dungeon,
which is why that loading screen suited it so well.

In town, you prepare,
on the loading screen, you catch your breath for a moment,
and once you enter the dungeon, you fight immediately.

Because that separation was so clear,
the rhythm of playing the game felt alive.

That is also why, when I think of the most memorable game loading screen,
I chose DNF.

What made that loading time special
was not that the screen itself was long or flashy.

It made me look forward to the action waiting right after it,
it carried the conversations I shared with friends,
and it had an atmosphere that made me want to play just one more run.

The gaming environment has improved so much since those days.

Loading is faster now,
the graphics are better,
and game systems are much more convenient.

Even so, every now and then I still think of that screen in the old PC bang,
paused for just a moment right before entering a DNF dungeon.

“Let us eat after this run.”
“No, just one more run.”
“This time, an item is really going to drop.”

Those few seconds we spent waiting while saying things like that.

They were brief, but somehow they stayed with me for a very long time.

So for this #게임로딩화면 topic,
I wanted to talk about the loading screen that appears right before entering a dungeon in DNF.

A screen that turned waiting
not into empty space,
but into a moment that made you anticipate the next action.

To me, that short loading time
was one of those details that made DNF feel even more like DNF.

#NPC01
#게임로딩화면
#확률형아이템포함
#피크챌린지
#던전앤파이터
#던파
#넥슨게임
#PC온라인게임