You can make the game a bit shorter bu using the Skip-Ostagar-Mod someone has made. It lets you skip Ostagar completely, but it still lets you play the origin story of your choice, say a Human Noble, a Dalish Elf, or a Dwarf Commoner.

I, too, would like to play DA:O again some day, but when I think about the Deep Roads; I look like this…. and like this