You get the first booster pack randomly after you've collected all the normal drops (typically half of all the available cards). A booster pack is three cards. A typical game has eight cards and you get half of them - that is, four - as normal drops which you earn just by buying the game. Then you need the booster pack for three more drops which brings you to a total of seven cards out of eight so you still need to get one more from somewhere else. That's why I'm asking if it's possible to get a second booster pack (before completing the badge of course).

But have you managed to get a booster pack? Because the conditions for triggering it don't seem to indicate that it is any game in particular. When you make a badge, you get a random card, but from my observations, that isn't necessarily a card from within your set. So I don't know if the booster pack is game specific

Also, you can get second levels on your badges, so purely to allow a reasonable percentage of people to get badges, surely you must be able to get more than one booster pack?

No, I haven't got a single booster pack yet. And as far as I know, booster packs are game-specific. I talked with my friend the other day about the whole Trading Card thing and he seemed to talk about game-specific booster packs (he mentioned having got a Half-Life 2 booster pack and then trading it for three cards from another game).

I'm sure you can get another booster pack as well as another set of card drops once you have finished your badge (the lower level one) but I kind of thought that was obvious. It still won't help you get the last card of a set if the game has eight or more cards because even with the normal drops and the booster pack, you'll get to a maximum of all cards minus one. I was trying to ask whether you can get another booster pack even before completing a badge. For example, let's say I have Left 4 Dead 2, which has four card drops and you get three more drops with a L4D2-specific booster pack. It still leaves one I don't get, and the question is, can I get another booster pack without completing the badge? If I can't, the only way to complete the badge is to trade the card from someone or buy it from the market because I have no drops remaining, which would really suck.

Well I just got my first booster pack, but then it dissapeared..... It was a football manager specific one and I gained it while out of a game. I have finished that badge actually and didn't get any new card drops. (I just bought the remaining cards based on profits from another foil card that dropped)

Now I'll just have to wait and see if I get another booster pack

Huh, so you don't get any new drops even after completing a badge. Sucks. I doubt you can get another booster pack then either. I'm sure it'll say it somewhere if you can, though, like the place where it normally says whether you can get a booster pack or not. And oh those foil cards, they've evaded me as well thus far... Need to play more!

It still says that you are elligable for another booster pack! Mine reappeared and gave me 3 FM cards, so I just need another 3 for another level!

I am also making some money by selling some stuff I got from TF to buy more cards! I don't understand why, but this is really addictive

What a strange system, them. But good for you, you're very lucky to have received so many booster packs already. And yeah, it is somewhat addictive. Personally I'd be a lot more addicted if I could actually finish some badges without sacrificing some other I want to complete.

I've only got 1 booster pack unfortunately. I got the first badge from buying up the ones that didn't drop

Oh, I see. Well, you got lucky anyway, booster packs seem kind of rare. Getting even a single one seems pretty hard.

Hard is not the right word, it is completely random, not even dependent on how much you play. You just need to log in each week to "maintain eligibility"

I don't really like that, I would rather being able to do something to get these cards rather than just waiting and only playing games for ~5 hours