I would love for the Amarr to have a sword, something very flashy and ceremonial looking, low damage compared to the nova knives, but higher range.

This thread is so full of awesome ideas, its crazy.

Here are a couple images that might make some interesting weapons once they are sci-fi'd up a bit.

Caldari blade
Amarr spear

Both from the hellboy movies but very cool nonetheless.

Caldari already have their weapon, the nova knife.

Having all 4 races have their own melee weapon is great, but if they're all knives then the variety is lost. Instead of each race getting some knives, give them each their own sort of melee weapon.

Minmatar could get badass predator claws for example (pretty please)

EDIT: A lot of people seem to want an Amarr lance or spear with a zapping part at the end, I would love this.

Actually, I would prefer if the amarr still had a knife. However it was one hand open, one hand with a knife. If you went up behind someone you could grab their head, push them down and make a big cut right across their throat -.o

As someone said above, it would also be cool to have a shield. Maybe amarr shield and pistol combo? Please?

amarr lightsaber
minmatar tomahawk

the gallente knife model is awesome.

i had an idea for a sort of shock staff u seen in starwars that general greivouses droid body guards carry
bascicaly a metal staff with electricity coming out of either end

but if they're all knives then the variety is lost.

I like the idea of the Minmatar melee weapon being a Rusty Pipe (war club). Imagine a squad of them running around as pack bashing everything in their way. Would be hilariously awesome.

As for stats,
Same as Nova Knives
No charge attack
Higher swing rate
Add a stagger effect to mess with the aim of the person getting hit (you are getting bludgeoned after all)

Gallente plasma mace. A rod with a ball of plasma at the end of it. You can charge it, but if you charge it for too long it gives you feedback damage. High damage, slow swing. Reward timing the charge and swing just right with a OHK on anything besides vehicles.

Edit:Image

I recall the Gallente knives looking pretty wicked. I wouldn't mind variety in melee, but it's not clear to me already exactly how they'd hope to distinguish various knives from each...

Presumably they'd all have crap knife-style range. They'd need to be relatively high damage to compensate. You'd need at least some speed to be able to keep up with someone that's just backpedaling?

Yeah, I'm not ever sure what the idea is with the knives as-is... how would they actually make them different?

If the Amarr had some slower-swinging priest-staff thing, and so on... maybe they could mix it up? Even then, I'm not sure how balancing melee would work in this game. Or making it "viable" I guess.