[Calgon]

Why can't you just stick to one topic? The higher the ping, the less interested your players will be in playing. Connecting to a server with a 300+ ping is overkill as it is, anything higher and a player probably won't bother connecting (at least that's how it is for me).

What you've been told is to an extent true, if you want your server to become successful, then you should pay for a host and not host it locally. Home-hosting your server with an extremely high ping is probably not going to attract players.