There was loot, experience, and the occasional interesting nugget of Dragon Age lore, but not much to draw most players away from the game's main story. In Dragon Age: Inquisition, players were offered little incentive to complete many of the game's side quests. Similarly, the multiplayer aspect creates a competitiveness that motivates players to strive beyond just getting the loot and experience they need, instead pushing them to go above and beyond to keep up with and impress their fellow players, motivating them in a way most single-player games can't.
Slowly poisoning pumpkins in World of Warcraft's Tirisfal Glades could be boring by itself, but getting help from another player and getting to know them adds a whole extra dimension to the game. In MMOs players have motivation to 'grind' through relatively tedious quests because they form arbitrary objectives around which player relationships can be formed. This left some of the huge areas created for Inquisition like the Hinterlands looking great but ultimately feeling shallow, at least outside of the main story.
Dragon Age: Inquisition is full of side quests, but the vast majority of them play far more like a quest from an MMORPG than the story-driven missions found in other BioWare RPGs.
