Dhruin
SasqWatch
Wired has comments from Dr. Ray Muzyka that BioWare is "checking out" Skyrim, although the suggestion that might take any real inspiration seems unlikely to me, especially given the doctor goes on to say "I’ve seen something in the last couple of weeks that is really the future of that franchise", which suggests they are (unsurprisingly) well into the design, if not the production. Anyway, here's the quote:
More information.
Thanks to Frozen Fireball, via GameInformer.“We’re checking [Skyrim] out aggressively. We like it. We’re big admirers of [Bethesda] and the product,” he said. “We think we can do some wonderful things.”
“[The next Dragon Age] is gonna have the best of features from the prior Dragon Age games, but it’s also gonna have a lot of things I think players are gonna find compelling from some of the games that are out now that are doing really well with more of an open world feel,” Muzyka said.
More information.