Once upon a time train seats were very orderly. This has not been true for a long time. Seats face both directions. Train direction is often not known. Seats are not aligned properly with windows on the vast majority of trains including ICE trains in First. For this reason, I'm often extremely annoyed when I book seats in advance, take the time to try to pick a good seat, and come to find my backwards facing seat does not even have a window. For this reason, just being randomly assigned seats may not be as bad as you might think.