Can your MMO really be an RPG?

I've recently rediscovered Oblivion on my Xbox 360.

Over the past few years I've spent some time playing a number of MMOs, and the experience varies somewhat between one and the next but consistently, they don't contain much roleplay.

This doesn't seem initially to be a critical aspect but it does hilight fundamental difference: MMOs seem to take a role more akin to team sports / social environment for the people that I know who play them ... kind of like an online pub, with orc slaying / raid dungeons thrown in. People play as themselves, disassociated from the characters that they play and with the advent of VOIP communications chatting as they do so.

This is no bad thing, the ability to socialise freely in an online environment, but it does show the marked difference between the MMO experience and the traditional RPG experince, where suspension of disbelief is maintained, and the players immersion in the story seems to be greater.

My open question about this: is it can you actually have an MMORPG that includes immersive roleplay, or is it the very nature of people that they bring their lives with them into the game and dilute the narrative?