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Originally Posted by VishnuOdin
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I love the BMP, especially as a source of nice, free, gold weapons for me and my heroes. As a lover of lore, I enjoy the stories greatly, though they often raise as many questions as they answer.
You play each story as the central character of the story, with a special weapon set and skill bar. For example, you play Turai's story as Turai Ossa, carrying his sword and shield, and using his skill bar (which also has some unique skills or variants of regular skills) to defeat Palawa Joko at the Battle of Jahai. That can be a fun challenge if the character is of a class that you haven't played before.
For me, it usually took a couple of tries to beat each story, but each can generally be done in under 30 minutes. The first victory unlocks the bonus mode, and it can take several tries to achieve those. (I still haven't managed to save all the Tengu in Togo's story, though I've run it frequently to get weapons.) The bonus objectives often require more exploration, and thus more time, to achieve. However, a couple of the stories have a bonus for minimum completion time. Turai's story, for example, can be done in 12 minutes with practice.
Saul D'Alessio's story and Gwen's story will have the most meaning for those who own Prophecies. Togo's story for owners of Factions. Turai's story for owners of Nightfall. However, even if you don't own the connected campaign, the stories are a nice way to get the flavor of it and decide whether you want to add it. They don't really spoil anything, though Saul's story might best be saved until after you've met the Mursaat yourself in the regular game, just to improve your understanding of what's going on.
I don't think you'll regret getting the BMP.
On your other questions:
I don't know anything about the skill packs, so I can't help you there.
For Prophecies elites, you don't even begin to get access to them until the Crystal Desert, and most are captured in the S. Shiverpeaks and Ring of Fire Islands. However, the elites in the Crystal Desert missions are a very good place to start. For example, Word of Healing is a great elite for a monk or monk hero. All three of the Crystal Desert missions offer the same set of elites, one for each core profession, so you can cap them wherever it is easiest for you. Obviously you will need to Ascend and unlock all of your secondary professions before you can go back and cap most of them.
For regular skills in Prophecies, you must reach the skill trainer in Ember Light Camp to have access to all core and Prophecies skills, but you will be able to build pretty good bars with the skills available before then. In EotN, all of the skill trainers will have all of the non-PvE skills from the expansion. Just get to the Eye, which is an easy walk from Boreal Station, and you can get any regular EotN skill you need. (PvE skills in EotN are obtained as quest rewards, not from a skill trainer.)
