Irrlicht Engine

The problem is that (I strongly suspect) the majority of people who declare a "small massive" project don't know what they mean either. I believe that it's simply cognitive dissonance: they don't want to think about the huge scope of what they're attempting, and so they slap a "small" in front of it and think that's sorted their core problem.

hmm, which database are we talking bout here.

server side mysql is more than capable.

Client side would we be talking bout the item database, maybe the quest database (replace quest with whatever word you use instead), the map database? Ok I'm being slightly far fetched with map database but I get the feeling this person has not though about all the aspects here.

Oh and for a mumorpugh you would almost definitely want to use a compiled "database" client side as you wouldn't want pesky players sniffing around trying to figure out how to cheat and get the endgame items.