Introduce chocobo as method of animaless transportaton for a fee.

Make chocobo raising next, I'm not a fan of the ran away bit, but have initial costs of raising/breeding chocobos be expensive, but with the potential of differences/equipment to give it be high(add more recepies later on).
Whistle to summon it as your trusty steed! Include dig for special items!

Last,(once everything ironed out, and the arena in uldah is set up) have pvp content for all three cities. Or one sport per city. Triple triad(or cards) in LL, arena in Uldah, and Chocoracing in Gridania!

I dunno about combat however. Perhaps only a specific weapon can do it, then there's the issue of getting mobs to render in the time it take for a chocobo to arrive.