Hello, I've been having trouble downloading Riverview for a loooong time. Even if it's a free world and I have a legit account on the TS3 website, it doesn't let me download it as a Sims3pack file and install it manually, it INSISTS on connecting me to my launcher automatically itself, and that doesn't work for me because over the years I've tweaked my game files so much that auto-launcher downloads just don't work anymore for me.

Not that I'm crazy about Riverview itself, but it is the pre-requisite of many custom worlds and I hate being unable to download a nice world just because I don't have Riverview installed. I looked around and came across a thread on MATY where they had the .world file uploaded, but the link was broken sadly...

And just today I thought what would happen if I downloaded EllaCharmed's "Riverview .world with fixes applied" straight away.
The upload it available here on MTS and also on her own tumblr. Would it work without owning the actual Riverview? I really really hope it does...

You can download it, but it won't work. Store worlds needs to be Launcher installed, not just placed into the InstalledWorlds folder, otherwise any player could just hand over copies of their store worlds to anyone else and there would be little reason to purchase them. There are more elements to them than just the .world file. The content is encrypted and, even when the price is free, working around that is the equivalent of piracy. Not sure that anyone has actually gone to jail for stealing a free world, but am just trying to explain the reasoning behind this structure and why it will fail.

This is worth fixing though, if you can. Even without the custom world dependencies, Riverview itself is a great world to play in. It's very easy to build upon and it reminds me of where I grew up especially during the harsh winters I impose upon it by way of NRaas Tempest.

Technically you could put the .world file in the Program Files\X\The Sims 3\GameData\Shared\NonPackaged\Worlds folder to force the game to read it. But you'll be missing all the objects that come with the world.
You could also download it from HERE: http://www.simfileshare.net/download/1665738/
Since it's a free world anyway, I don't think there's anything wrong with sharing it.

Thank you Igazor and Naus Allien for the help and suggestions!
I finally managed to download and install it after years and years of struggling.

@igazor Actually, it is possible to install worlds without going through the Launcher, and it doesn't involve doing anything illegal to obtain the files
This tutorial even uses Riverview itself as an example. The only step I would recommend avoiding is decrapping the file, in step 3, and running it through s3rc.exe instead of decrapify.exe (though I haven't tested without running the .sims3pack through s3rc, so I'm not sure whether skipping this step entirely would do any harm).

I've been installing worlds like this for years and haven't run into any issues (except the missing lot and sim names and descriptions one, when I didn't follow that step).